USA President Barack Obama has announced that the U.S. combat mission in Iraq is over. The president said Tuesday America’s new mission is to advise and assist Iraq’s security forces.
Seven-and-a-half years after U.S. forces invaded Iraq, President Obama thanked the troops for their service and announced that their combat mission has concluded. “Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country,” he said.
In only the second Oval Office address of his presidency since taking office, Mr. Obama did not declare victory, but said the move to a new mission is underway. “Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it is time to turn the page,” the president said.
Four israelis were killed on Tuesday night when gunmen opened fire on their car at the entrance to Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, in the West Bank.
The attack occurred around 7:30 P.M. on Route 60, when shots were fired at a private vehicle near the Bani Naim junction, south of Kiryat Arba. Preliminary reports showed the gunmen approached the vehicle and shot the victims multiple times at point-blank range.
Magen David Adom reported that the victims were two men aged 25 and 40 and two women, also aged 25 and 40, one of whom was pregnant.
The victims were all residents of the settlement of Beit Hagai in the southern Hebron Hills.
Hamas’ military wing has claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes just a day before the White House effort to re-launch Mideast peace talks.
A statement from the armed wing of Hamas, a group that opposes any dialogue with Israel, said the “Qassam Brigades announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron”.
At least 10 people died, including four African Union peacekeepers, in fighting in Somalia’s capital between forces loyal to the Western-backed government and al-Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels.
The AU troops died when a mortar hit the presidential palace in southern Mogadishu, Major Barigye Ba-Hoku, a spokesman for the continental body’s peacekeeping mission, said in a phone interview today from the city.
“We have lost four soldiers and eight others have sustained injuries,” Ba-Hoku said.
In the city’s central Bakara market, six people were killed near a jewelry kiosk, said Ali Muse Sheikh, a paramedic at Nationlink and Lifeline Africa.
Ethiopian troops crossed the border and entered Somalia.
“Around 1,000 soldiers are heading in the direction of Beledehawa and Elwak,” a source in Dolo told Addis Neger online. Beledehawa and Elwak are towns along the Kenya-Somalia border.
According to the source, nearly 6,000 soldiers are also deployed on the border town of Dolo. Dolo is a town that border Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. The troops have reportedly been stationed in Dolo for the last three weeks.
Addis Neger analyst said that the objective of the move seems to divert the focus of the Islamic militant group, Al-Shabaab, from Mogadishu, capital of Somalia. Al-Shabaab has a plan to control Mogadishu in the coming two days.
Heavy fighting between the troops of the transitional government of Somalia backing by the African Union troops AMISOM and allied fighters of Hizbul Islam and al-Shabaab has broken out in parts of Hodan district in the Somali capital Mogadishu for the 6th consecutive day.
Most of the clashes continued between Dabka and Bakara intersections in Hodan district where both Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a clerics and the transitional government forces with AMISOM and al-Shabaab forces that exchanged heavy gunfire which had affected parts of Bakara market in the capital, killing 20, wounding 30 others.
Most of the people died and wounded in parts of Hodan and Hawl-wadag districts in the capital according to the emergency traffic officials adding that there were more mortars using both sides.
Three men were killed in Beirut on Tuesday in clashes between supporters of Shiite group Hizbullah and a Sunni faction, Al-Ahbash, security sources said.
Mohammad Fawaz, a Hizbullah official, his aide Munzer Hadi and Fawez Omeirat from Al-Ahbash were killed in clashes sparked by a fight between a supporter of Hizbullah and another from Al-Ahbash in the mixed Sunni-Shiite Beirut neighborhood of Burj Abi Haidar in Beirut.
But late on Tuesday Hizbullah and Al-Ahbash issued a joint statement following a meeting at the offices of the Lebanese Army Intelligence Unit in Beirut saying the clash was “an isolated one and does not carry any political and sectarian undertones.”
