3 bombings in day fatal to 17 in Iraq
BAGHDAD — A suicide car bomb ripped through an outdoor market Tuesday in a Shiite-dominated northeastern district of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people, officials said.
Five more people died in bombings Tuesday elsewhere in Iraq.
The developments came on the heels of two large-scale attacks claimed by the Islamic State extremist group that killed more than 300 people last week. On Monday, visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Washington will send 560 more troops to Iraq to help battle the Islamic State.
In Tuesday’s Baghdad bombing, the explosives-laden pickup exploded during the morning rush hour at a vegetable and fruit market in the al-Rashidiya district, a police officer said. The blast killed 12 and wounded up to 37, and also damaged several cars, he added.
Elsewhere, a bomb went off at another outdoor market, this one in the town of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, killing three shoppers and wounding 10 people, police said. And two more civilians were killed and nine were wounded in a bombing that targeted a commercial area in the capital’s southern neighborhood of Dora, police also said.
U.S. airman missing in Italy found dead
MILAN — The body of a U.S. airman was found in a river in the northern Italian town where he disappeared about 10 days ago, Italian and U.S. authorities said Tuesday.
An Italian military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to give the information, said the body of Staff Sgt. Halex Hale was identified by his father and colleagues from Aviano Air Base. The body, dressed in a swimming suit, was spotted earlier Tuesday by a passer-by, who notified authorities.
The Air Force confirmed that Hale’s body had been found in the Livenza River, within a mile of where he vanished July 2. The cause of death is under investigation.
“We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss of life,” said Brig. Gen. Lance Landrum, commander of the 31st Fighter Wing, “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, fellow airmen and friends.”
The 24-year-old from Middletown, Ind., who was assigned to Aviano Air Base north of Venice, disappeared after leaving a friend’s cookout off base in the town of Sacile to walk to another friend’s home about 15 minutes away. He left his cellphone, credit cards and car at the cookout.
Authorities say it is possible that Hale had gone swimming in a canal in front of his friend’s house, although the cause of death remains unknown. The canal runs into the river where the body was found.
Afghanistan now riskiest for journalists
KABUL, Afghanistan — A new report by the Afghan Journalists’ Safety Committee named 2016 as the most dangerous so far for journalists in Afghanistan, with 10 news professionals killed in the first six months of this year.
The report, released Monday, recorded 54 instances of violence against journalists during the first half of the year — 38 percent higher than in the same period in 2015.
The violence included killings, assaults, detentions and intimidation, and most were carried out by “individuals linked to the government,” the committee’s report said, without elaborating.
The Taliban were behind 30 percent of the attacks, or 16 of the 54 recorded instances.
In a Jan. 20 Taliban attack, a bus carrying employees of the country’s main commercial television network, Tolo TV, was blown up and seven were killed.
The Afghan committee also cited the June deaths of NPR’s photographer David Gilkey and his Afghan assistant, Zabiullah Tamana, in the volatile southern Helmand province.
Israel targets West Bank’s gun-makers
JERUSALEM — Israel has seized dozens of weapons, shut down arms-making factories and arrested weapons dealers in a crackdown in the West Bank, an Israeli military official said Tuesday.
Col. Roman Gofman, a commander of a West Bank brigade, said the crackdown is making it more difficult and expensive to carry out attacks with guns.
Gofman said the 10-month outburst of violence had reached a new intensity with an increasing number of attacks using guns.
He said some 200 guns had been seized since the start of the year and that 16 factories forging crude weapons had been closed.
He said weapons-makers also were becoming more hesitant to sell arms to potential attackers out of a fear that they could be tracked down by the military.