Continue reading »]]> A suicide bomber blew himself up Tuesday among hundreds of army recruits who had gathered near a military headquarters in an attack officials said killed 60 and wounded 125, one of the bloodiest bombings in weeks in the Iraqi capital.

The massive blast took place around 7:30 a.m. just outside the former Iraqi Ministry of Defense building that now houses the army’s 11th division headquarters. The site receives about 250 new recruits each week as Iraqi security forces try to bolster their ranks to prepare for the U.S. military’s looming withdrawal after seven years of war.

Blown-off hands and legs could be seen among pools of blood at the scene, which Iraqi soldiers closed off. U.S. helicopters hovered overhead as frantic Iraqis showed up to search for relatives.

At least two recruits who witnessed that attack raised the possibility that a car had also exploded at the scene, which could account for the high death toll. But a military spokesman blamed the deaths on a single suicide bomber.

"We were sitting there, and somebody began shouting about a parked car," said one of the recruits, Ali Ibrahim, 21, who suffered minor shrapnel wounds in the blast. Ibrahim said he had been waiting to get into the headquarters to secure a job since around 3 a.m.

"Then the explosion happened and I was thrown on my back," he said after his release from the hospital. "It was a tragic scene."

The recruits were gathered in an open area next to Maidan Square in central Baghdad as they waited to be let through the main gates in small groups, according to two Iraqi police officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. At least three soldiers were among the dead and eight among the wounded, the police officials said.

Officials at four Baghdad hospitals confirmed the casualties. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Iraqi Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a military spokesman, told The Associated Press that the blast was caused by a single suicide bomber who detonated his vest among the packed crowd. He put the casualty count at 39 killed and 57 wounded. Varying casualty counts are common in the chaotic aftermath of massive attacks.

Al-Moussawi blamed al-Qaida for enlisting the bomber, whose upper body was found at the scene, he said.

As many as 1,000 army recruits were gathered at the division headquarters, he added, because Tuesday was to be the last day for soldiers to sign up at the unit.

"We couldn’t get another place for the recruits," al-Moussawi said. "It was difficult to control the area because it’s an open area and because of the large number of recruits."

Iraqi security forces have been trying to boost their numbers as the U.S. military begins to leave the country. All but 50,000 U.S. troops will go home by the end of August, with the rest to follow by the end of 2011 under a security agreement between Baghdad and Washington.

But insurgents determined to highlight the Iraqi government’s struggle to protect the nation have been stepping up attacks in recent weeks.

Iraqi army, police and other security forces have been targeted, but civilians also have been killed by the hundreds.

This summer has seen a spike in violence in Iraq. Data from the Iraqi defense, interior and ministry officials show that July marked the bloodiest month since May 2008, with more than 500 killed, although tallies compiled by The Associated Press and the U.S. military were lower.

August, which saw the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, has also been deadly. Two bombs that set off a power generator and ignited a fuel tank on Aug. 7. killed 43 people in a downtown market in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city.

source

Continue reading »]]> Hundreds of people were feared dead on Tuesday after high winds and heavy seas capsized boats carrying African migrants heading for Europe off the coast of Libya.

“A tragedy has happened off the Libyan coast with at least two boats going down … with obviously hundreds of people going down at sea,” Jean-Philippe Chauzy with the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, Switzerland, said Tuesday, citing diplomatic officials in Tripoli and Libyan officials.

The U.N. refugee agency, aware of the reports, said they came at the “beginning of the smuggling season in the Mediterranean.”

The vessels departed Sunday and were heading to southern Europe, Egypt’s Middle East News Agency reported Monday. Official casualty figures were not immediately available from Libyan authorities, but Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said only 20 people had been rescued including six Egyptians.

Reports of the incident varied widely. Egyptian state television said two fishing vessels carrying more than 600 people sank, while the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said one fishing boat went down with 257 people on board. Up to three boats sank, according to Chauzy.

Italian coast guards said an Italian tugboat working for an offshore oil companies in the Libyan seas picked up 350 people on Sunday and carried them to Libya with the help of the Italian military.

The migrants were believed to be headed for the Italian island of Lampedusa, where 37,000 landed last year, according to Chauzy, who said many African migrants converge on Libya en route to Europe.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said details remain sketchy about what happened, but at least one boat among several vessels leaving Libya for Italy went down and hundreds are reported missing.

It said the incident occurred around 18 miles off the Libyan coast. It said some Egyptian nationals were rescued and bodies were recovered. Those aboard included Africans from the northern and the sub-Saharan regions.

High Commissioner Antonio Guterres on Tuesday said that the tragedy reflects the desperation of people to escape poverty and persecution.

“This tragic incident illustrates, once again, the dangers faced by people caught in mixed irregular movements of migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean and elsewhere which every year cost thousands of lives,” the U.N. agency said.

Hundreds feared dead off coast of Libya

Incoming search terms:

• Indonesian ferry sank 95 killed

Continue reading »]]> The Israeli blitz against the Gaza Strip has left two more people killed, bringing the Palestinian death toll to 397 since Saturday.

Over 1900 others were also wounded in the onslaught. Women and children have been among the victims, the UN announced on Wednesday.

A Palestinian medic was killed and two others wounded when a missile struck next to their ambulance east of Gaza City, Palestinians said.

The military bombed a mosque in the southern Gaza Strip late Wednesday evening.

A senior Israeli military officer said Israeli jets have carried out some 500 sorties against Hamas-linked targets in Gaza. He added helicopters have flown hundreds more combat missions.

Earlier on Tuesday, 30 other Palestinians, including two sisters aged 5 and 2, were killed in Israeli raids.

Israel has deployed tanks and troops along the border with the costal enclave, raising speculations that a ground incursion into Gaza is in the offing.

Press TV – Gaza death toll rises to 397; 1900 injured

Continue reading »]]> The death toll of a road accident in southern Egypt has risen to 57, the state MENA news agency reported on Sunday, citing a senior official.

Minya Governor Ahmed Diaaeddin said the bus carrying 70 passengers was traveling to Beni Sueif when the accident occurred.

On Sunday morning, the coach overturned some 200 km south of Cairo on the way from the southern city of Minya to Beni Sueif, said MENA.

The bus plunged into Al-Ibrahimia canal as the driver was trying to avoid a speedy truck coming from the opposition direction, Diaaeddin was quoted as saying.

Earlier reports said most of the victims drowned in the canal before rescuers can reach them.

More than 20 ambulances rushed to the spot to take part in rescue operations, said Diaaeddin, adding both drivers are being held pending investigations.

Earlier reports said at least 51 people were killed in the road accident, one of the deadliest tragedies in the country in recent years.

Traffic accidents are common in Egypt with an estimated annual death toll of some 6,000 people.

On Monday, a bus carrying Coptic students overturned about 30 km south of Cairo, killing at least 13 people and injuring 30 others.

On Dec. 1, at least 14 people were killed and 11 others injured when a lorry collided with two microbuses near the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, some 220 km northwest of Cairo.

The Egyptian traffic authorities implemented a new traffic code with tougher punishments for lawbreakers as of Aug. 1 in a bid to reduce road accidents.

English_Xinhua

Continue reading »]]> BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — A car bomb exploded Friday in an outdoor market in southern Baghdad, killing at least 12 civilians and wounding 22, an Interior Ministry official said.

Women and children were among the casualties from the explosion in the Shiite enclave in the Dora neighborhood, the official said.

In a separate incident Friday, an improvised explosive device killed four Iraqis and wounded 18 during an attack against an Iraqi Police mounted patrol in Mosul, north of Baghdad, according to a written statement from the Multi-National Division-North. Two Iraqi policemen were wounded.

Explosions kill 16 Iraqi civilians – CNN.com

Continue reading »]]> CAIRO (AFP) – At least 12 people were killed in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria before dawn on Wednesday when a four-storey apartment block collapsed as families slept, security and hospital officials said.

Eleven bodies were pulled from the rubble of the building where about 35 people lived, and one man succumbed to his injuries in hospital, the officials said. At least six people were injured in the collapse.

The recovered bodies included a woman locked in an embrace with her baby, the official MENA news agency reported, adding that the search was going on for more bodies.

The building collapsed at around 1:00 am (2300 GMT Tuesday) when most residents were sleeping, the official said, adding there might be more people still under the rubble.

Rescue workers and neighbourhood residents pulled out an injured 11-year-old girl on Wednesday morning, but they have not since found anyone alive under the rubble, a security official said.

Alexandria Governor Adel Labib told state television that rescue operations would end on Wednesday.

Two neighbouring apartment blocks, one whose roof partially collapsed, were evacuated after the accident, which crushed cars that had been parked in front of the collapsed building, the official said.

Saleh Subhi, an MP from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood who was at the scene, blamed municipal authorities for the accident.

“The building was known to need renovation work,” he told AFP, adding that the block’s owner had recently added two storeys to the building.

“The building was already ready to collapse,” he said. “It was not in keeping with housing regulations. This is the third building to collapse in the district. The municipality cannot be exonerated.”

Municipal authorities were not immediately available to comment.

Such incidents are relatively frequent in Egypt where building regulations are often flouted and additional floors are added without permission.

Last December, 35 people were killed when a 12-storey building collapsed, also in Alexandria.

In 2005, the collapse of a six-storey building there killed 19 people. Three extra storeys had been added illegally.

Tougher legislation against construction companies which ignore the law was introduced in 1996 after a building in a Cairo residential area caved in, killing 64 people.

Wednesday’s building collapse came a month after a massive rockfall buried dozens of homes in a Cairo shantytown, killing more than 100 residents.

Most of the brick-built dwellings in the district had two floors and were put up without permission.

Residents blamed the rockslide on work that had been going on for several weeks on the Moqattam hill overlooking the shantytown, and said the authorities had been warned of the dangers of just such a disaster.

Twelve dead in Egypt building collapse – Yahoo! News

Continue reading »]]> Eleven people have been killed during a American raid in the Iraqi city of Mosul in which a suicide bomber blew himself up, the US military says.

Three women and three children were among the dead at the private home, the US military said, adding that five “terrorists” had also died.

However, an official at a local morgue told the BBC most of the dead showed signs of bullet wounds.

Elsewhere in Mosul, four people were killed when gunmen attacked a funeral.

Three other people were wounded in the drive-by attack in the Zanjili district, the BBC’s Hugh Sykes reports from Baghdad.

In September, three members of an Iraqi television crew and their driver were kidnapped and shot dead in the same neighbourhood.

‘Last stronghold’

In a statement on the deadly explosion, US officials said troops had exchanged fire with armed men as they entered the building for what they described as an operation to capture a wanted man.

The morgue official dealing with the aftermath of the suicide bombing said one body bag contained fragments of human remains, consistent with the report that there was a suicide bomber at the house, our correspondent says.

US authorities confirmed that some of those who died could have been killed by gunshot wounds.

Following the blast soldiers later found weapons and explosives in the building, the statement said.

“This is just another tragic example of how al-Qaeda in Iraq hides behind innocent Iraqis,” a spokesman said.

On Saturday US forces said they had killed a senior al-Qaeda bomb-maker and strategist in Baghdad.

Our correspondent says American forces have mounted many attacks this year against suspected al-Qaeda members in Mosul, which they describe as al-Qaeda’s last stronghold.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Suicide bomber strikes in Mosul

Continue reading »]]> SOFIA (AFP) — A Ukrainian ship sank early Saturday off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast in bad weather, and 10 crew members are still missing, the Bulgarian transport ministry said.

Only an empty lifeboat had been found at the scene off Cape Emine where the 5,000-tonne Tolstoy went down, the ministry said.

The ship, sailing under a North Korean flag, sent no distress signal, but the Bulgarian authorities were alerted by a Russian satellite center, Nikolai Apostolov, head of the Bulgarian maritime office said earlier.

The transport ministry said 10 people were on board. The captain was Russian and the rest of the crew was Ukrainian, the port official said.

A port official in Rostov-on-Don, from which the Tolstoy sailed on September 21, had earlier said there were 13 crew members on board.

Apostolov added that the ship was in “”bad condition,”" according to records from the Rostov-on-Don.

Earlier, Transport Minister Petar Mutafchiyev told state radio that bad weather was to blame for the incident.

The Tolstoy was carrying a cargo of scrap metal to the Turkish port of Nemrut, Apostolov said.

The Bulgarian transport ministry originally described the vessel as Russian but said later it was owned by a Ukrainian company, Regina Ship, of Kiev.

Strong winds caused the closure of Bulgaria’s main port of Varna on Friday, while the Focus news agency quoted a weather expert at the port of Burgas as reporting waves of six to nine meters (20 to 30 feet) high and winds of 90 kilometers (55 miles) an hour on Saturday.

tehran times : Ukrainian boat sinks in Black Sea, 10 crew missing

Continue reading »]]> BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters collided while landing at an American combat outpost in northern Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

One Iraqi soldier was killed and two American and two Iraqi soldiers were injured, military spokesman Lieutenant Patrick Evans said in an e-mail to Reuters.

“Two UH-60 Black Hawks have crashed while landing at Combat Outpost Ford in (the northern Baghdad district of) Adhamiya about 8:55 p.m. Baghdad time (1755 GMT) this evening,” he said.

“The situation is under control. Emergency services are on the scene. It is unknown how many were on board at the time of the incident. Enemy fire is not suspected at this time.”

A Reuters television cameraman in the Sha’ab district of northern Baghdad, near Adhamiya, said he saw two helicopters circling overhead. The engine of one of them made a thudding sound as it lost altitude and crashed.

The cameraman said he heard an explosion after the impact, followed by the sound of shooting.

Iraqi police confirmed the crash. They gave no further details, but said clashes had broken out between Iraqi security forces and gunmen near the crash site.

But the U.S. military said the crash had taken place at its base and it was not aware of any clashes in the area.

The incident was the second major U.S. military helicopter crash in Iraq in weeks. Last month, seven U.S. soldiers were killed when a transport helicopter crashed in southern Iraq in an incident the military blamed on mechanical failure.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas and Peter Graff; Writing by Peter Graff)

Two U.S. helicopters collide in Baghdad | Top News | Reuters

Continue reading »]]> BAGHDAD – Suicide bombers struck two Shiite mosques in Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 24 people and wounding dozens during celebrations marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

To the north, suspected Shiite militiamen gunned down six members of a Sunni family, including women and children, police reported.

Those attacks occurred four days after a series of explosions killed 32 people and wounded nearly 100 in Shiite areas of Baghdad, raising fears that al-Qaida in Iraq is trying to provoke Sunni-Shiite reprisal killings now that the last of the American “surge” troops have left the country.

In the deadliest attack, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives about 20 yards from a mosque in Zafaraniyah in southeastern Baghdad. The blast killed 14 people, including three Iraqi soldiers, and wounded 28, police said.

The death toll would likelier have been higher, but Iraqi soldiers prevented the attacker from driving closer to the mosque, police said.

“Pools of blood and the smell of burned flesh were everywhere and I saw a man of about 70 bleeding and lying on the ground,” said Ammar Hashim, 25, whose brother was also wounded by broken glass in his shop.

In the other attack in the capital, a suicide bomber who appeared to be in his late teens detonated his explosive belt as worshippers were leaving the Rasoul mosque in the eastern New Baghdad district.

Ten people died and 24 were wounded, police and officials at al-Kindi and Ibn al-Nasif hospitals said. The dead included a guard who blocked the attacker from entering the mosque, police said.

The Iraqi army said 17 people were killed in the two blasts. But area hospitals said that figure did not include victims who died later from their wounds.

The attack on the Sunni family occurred in Diyala, a heavily mixed province north of the capital. Police said gunmen sprayed the family’s vehicle with automatic weapons fire as they traveled to the provincial capital of Baqouba to visit relatives.

The dead included two children, three women and a man, police said. Another woman and her small child were wounded.

Police said the area was controlled by mostly Shiite security forces and that they suspected Shiite militiamen were responsible for the attack.

The police officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Victims of the Baghdad attacks were attending prayers marking Eid al-Fitr, the religious holiday that comes at the end of Ramadan. Sunnis and other Shiite groups celebrated Eid al-Fitr earlier in the week.

Iraqi police and soldiers have been on alert for sectarian attacks around Ramadan, when devout Muslims fast from dawn until dusk and religious fervor runs high.

Last Sunday, five bombs exploded in Shiite areas of Baghdad, killing 32 people and wounding about 100. U.S. officials believed al-Qaida was behind the blasts.

Shiite cleric and lawmaker Jalaluddin al-Saghir blamed the mosque attacks on “the beasts of al-Qaida” that consider Shiites as religious heretics and collaborators with the Americans.

“After being weakened and isolated, the terrorists want to make a comeback in the capital and show that they are still powerful,” al-Saghir told The Associated Press. “I think the al-Qaida efforts will fail because Iraqis now are more aware of the heavy price of any new round of sectarian violence.”

The main Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, joined in condemning the mosque attacks and called on Iraqis to unite against “those who want to transfer political disputes into the language of violence.”

Bloody assaults on Shiite civilians helped trigger the massive wave of sectarian fighting that led to President Bush’s decision to dispatch nearly 30,000 reinforcements to Iraq in 2007.

The last of those “surge” troops left Iraq in July after violence in the capital dropped to its lowest level in four years.

U.S. commanders have acknowledged a small increase in attacks recently in the Baghdad area as Iraqi forces assume a greater role in security. Late Thursday, a rocket or mortar shell exploded in the Green Zone, causing no injuries, the U.S. military said. It was the first known attack against the U.S.-protected area in weeks.

In a statement Thursday, U.N. special representative Staffan de Mistura expressed concern over the “recent spike in violence,” urging Iraqis to maintain unity “in foiling the aims of those who want to push them back into the murderous cycle of sectarian violence.”

Also Thursday, a bomb wounded four American soldiers in western Baghdad, according to U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Steven Stover. He gave no other details, but Baghdad police said the attacker detonated an explosive-laden car alongside a U.S. convoy.

Two Iraqi civilians were also wounded, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was also not authorized to speak to the press.

Suicide attackers strike Shiite mosques, kill 24 – Yahoo! News