RAMADI, Iraq: A suicide bombing and shelling in Iraq’s Anbar province killed six people as security forces on Friday pressed an assault against militants for territory the government lost weeks ago.
The unrest in Anbar coupled with violence elsewhere in Iraq, which has already killed more than 600 people this month, has fuelled fears the country is slipping back into all-out sectarian war with little appetite for compromise among political leaders ahead of a general election scheduled for April.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon and other diplomats have urged Baghdad to pursue political reconciliation, but Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ruled out dialogue with militants and the authorities have instead trumpeted operations by the police and army.
Iraqi officials say clashes with militants and a suicide attack have killed five people, including three anti-Al-Qaeda fighters, in the embattled western Anbar province.
Hospital officials say a battle between security forces and Al-Qaeda fighters early on Friday in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, killed two civilians who were caught in the crossfire.
Police officials say a suicide bomber detonated his explosives among a gathering of an anti-Al-Qaeda militia late Thursday in the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi, killing three militiamen and wounding four.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.
Since December, Iraqi security forces and allied tribesmen have been trying to recapture territories overran by Al-Qaeda in Anbar, including Fallujah and parts of Ramadi. On Friday, thousands of security personnel from elite forces pressed an assault on Albubali, a rural area where security officials say a large number of anti-government fighters are holed up.
The area, comprised of farmland and villages, lies between Ramadi and Fallujah, the two cities in the western desert province of Anbar at the center of the crisis.
Security forces are also seeking to recover the bodies of eight of their own who have been killed in militant attacks.
The air support which initially accompanied the operation has been withdrawn for fear that the militants have anti-aircraft weapons, two policemen told AFP.
They said that security forces, backed by tanks, had so far recovered the bodies of six gunmen killed in the offensive, but progress was limited by snipers.
A large swathe of Ramadi and all of Fallujah, both former insurgent bastions, fell out of government control late last month, marking the first time anti-government fighters have exercised such open control in major cities since the height of the insurgency that followed the US-led invasion of 2003.
Iraq Army presses Anbar assault as unrest kills 6
Iraq Army presses Anbar assault as unrest kills 6
Over 10,000 people displaced in 3 days in Sudan: UN agency
- The conflict has created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises
PORT SUDAN: Violence in western and southern Sudan displaced more than 10,000 people within three days this week, according to figures released by the UN’S migration agency on Sunday.
Since April 2023, Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have waged what the UN has called a “war of atrocities,” killing tens of thousands of people and uprooting more than 11 million.
Between Dec. 25 and 26, attacks on the villages of Um Baru and Kernoi near Sudan’s western border with Chad displaced more than 7,000 people, according to the International Organization for Migration.
After its takeover of the North Darfur capital of El-Fasher in October, the RSF has pushed westward in recent days, through enclaves inhabited by the Zaghawa ethnic group and controlled by a militia.
Between Christmas Eve and Friday, a further 3,100 people were displaced from the famine-stricken city of Kadugli in South Kordofan, which has been under siege by paramilitary forces for over a year and a half.
Resource-rich Kordofan is currently experiencing the fiercest fighting, as the RSF and its allies seek to recapture Sudan’s central corridor, which runs from Darfur back toward the capital, Khartoum.
The conflict has created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
It has also effectively split Sudan in two, with the army controlling the north, east, and center while the RSF dominates all five state capitals in Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.
