BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces boosted their presence and measures around the Shiite city of Karbala on Saturday, a day after a deadly bombing hit a minibus packed with passengers outside the city. 

“Twelve civilians have been killed and five wounded in an explosion on a bus at the main checkpoint for the northern entrance to Karbala,” the city’s health authorities said, adding the victims included women and children. Iraq’s prime minister said security forces have detained a man suspected of detonating the bomb.

The blast was one of the biggest attacks targeting civilians since the extremist Daesh group was declared defeated inside Iraq in 2017. 

The group’s sleeper cells continue to wage an insurgency and carry out sporadic attacks across the country.

The charred minibus was still on the road near the city on Saturday morning, hours after the blast killed 12 people and wounded five others.

At least two police spokesmen in the area said an explosive device planted on the bus detonated at a northern entrance to the city, setting fire to the vehicle.

According to the officials, the blast occurred as the bus was passing through an Iraqi army checkpoint between Karbala and Al-Hilla.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in a statement released by his office on Saturday gave no further details about the suspect.

Parliament Speaker Mohamad Al-Halbousi expressed in a statement his frustration with the repeated “failures of intelligence agencies” to prevent such attacks. He added that security plans should be reviewed and intelligence gathering intensified.

On Saturday, security was tight on the roads entering Karbala with added checkpoints searching cars.

The explosion occurred as the bus was passing through an Iraqi army checkpoint, about 10 km south of Karbala in the direction of the town of Al-Hilla.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which took place during a holy period marked by Shiites in Iraq between two important religious events, Ashoura and Arbaeen. 

Daesh insurgents have continued to carry out regular attacks mostly against security forces in the north of the country, however.

Arbaeen is the annual commemoration marking the end of the 40-day mourning period for the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a central figure in Shiite Islam. Imam Hussein was one of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandsons.

Thirty-one pilgrims were killed and about 100 injured 10 days ago as hundreds of thousands of Shiites marked Ashoura, one of the most solemn holy days of the year. 

It was the deadliest stampede in recent history during Ashoura commemorations.

WASHINGTON, DUBAI: The US announced on Friday that it was sending military reinforcements to the Gulf region following attacks on Saudi oil facilities that it attributes to Iran, just hours after President Donald Trump ordered new sanctions on Tehran.

Separately, Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday denounced renewed US sanctions against its central bank as an attempt to deny ordinary Iranians access to food and medicine.

Iran denies involvement in the attacks, which initially halved oil output from Saudi Arabia. Responsibility was claimed by Yemen’s Houthi militants, an Iranian-aligned group fighting an Arab alliance in Yemen’s civil war.

“But this is dangerous and unacceptable as an attempt at blocking … the Iranian people’s access to food and medicine,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters in remarks shown on state television.

Zarif was speaking after arriving in New York for the annual UN General Assembly next week.

Sanctions ‘toughest’

Trump said the sanctions were the toughest-ever against another country, but indicated he did not plan a military strike, calling restraint a sign of strength.

The Treasury Department renewed action against Iran’s central bank after US officials said Tehran carried out weekend attacks on rival Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, which triggered a spike in global crude prices.

Those attacks, combined with an Iranian attack on an American spy drone in June, represented a “dramatic escalation of Iranian aggression,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said.

The Pentagon chief announced that the US would send military reinforcements to the Gulf region at the request of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“In response to the kingdom’s request, the president has approved the deployment of US forces, which will be defensive in nature, and primarily focused on air and missile defense,” Esper said.

However Joint Chiefs of Staff Joe Dunford categorized the deployment as “moderate,” with the number of troops not expected to reach thousands.

Meanwhile, there were reports on social media that a number of Iranian servers and websites — including those of some petrochemical firms — were under a cyberattack. There was no immediate official comment, and the websites of the main state oil company NIOC appeared to be functioning normally. Residents said their Internet access was not affected.

NetBlocks, an organization that monitors internet connectivity, said its data showed “intermittent disruptions” to some internet services in Iran starting from Friday evening.

But the group said the impact was limited, affecting only specific providers, and the cause was unclear. 

“Data are consistent with a cyber-attack or unplanned technical incident on affected networks as opposed to a purposeful withdrawal or shutdown incident,” it said in a tweet.

The fresh sanctions target the Central Bank of Iran, which was already under other US sanctions, the National Development Fund of Iran — the country’s sovereign wealth fund — and an Iranian company that US officials say is used to conceal financial transfers for Iranian military purchases.

RIYADH: Iran bears responsibility for the attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities on Sept. 14 and that the Kingdom was working with allies to decide an appropriate response, Saudi Arabian minister of state for foreign affairs Adel Al-Jubeir said on Saturday.

Al-Jubeir said the attacks were undertaken with Iranian weapons and it was for this reason that Iran should be held accountable for the incident, adding: “We are certain that the attacks did not come from Yemen but from the north. Investigations will prove that.”

Saudi Arabia has said already that the investigation so far shows that Iranian weapons were used and the attack originated from the north, and that it was pinpointing the exact location

In a press conference held in the Saudi capital, Al-Jubeir also said that the attacks on Aramco facilities were also targeting global energy security and that Saudi Arabia would take appropriate steps to respond if investigations confirm that Iran is responsible.

“The Kingdom will take the appropriate measures based on the results of the investigation, to ensure its security and stability,” Al-Jubeir said.

Saudi Arabia has rejected claims from Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis that they carried out the strikes, the largest-ever assault on Saudi oil facilities in the world’s top oil exporter. Tehran has denied any involvement in the attacks.

Saudi Arabia is consulting with its allies to “take the necessary steps”, Al-Jubeir said, urging the international community to take a stand.

” The Kingdom calls upon the international community to assume its responsibility in condemning those that stand behind this act, and to take a firm and clear position against this reckless behaviour that threatens the global economy,” he said.

“The Iranian position is to try to divide the world and in that it is not succeeding.”

The US this week imposed more sanctions on Iran and approved the sending of American troops to the region.

(With Agencies)

CAIRO: Hundreds protested in central Cairo and several other Egyptian cities late on Friday against President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, responding to an online call for a demonstration against government corruption, witnesses said.
Protests have become very rare in Egypt following a broad crackdown on dissent under El-Sisi, who took power after the overthrow of the former Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013 following mass protests against his rule.
Meanwhile, the UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash on Saturday tweeted in Arabic: “The Muslim Brotherhood’s organized campaign against Egypt and its stability has failed miserably. Supported media platforms are matched by genuine popular support for the Egyptian state and its institutions. Egypt is recovering and facing challenges with insistence on a daily basis.

حملة الإخوان المنظمة ضد مصر واستقرارها فشلت فشلا ذريعا، منصات الإعلام الموجه والمدعوم يقابلها دعم شعبي حقيقي للدولة المصرية ومؤسساتها، مصر تتعافى وتواجه التحديات بإصرار يوميا والواقع غير الذي يروج له هذا الإعلام الحزبي الممول خارجيا.

— د. أنور قرقاش (@AnwarGargash) September 21, 2019

Security forces moved to disperse the small and scattered crowds in Cairo using tear gas but many young people stayed on the streets in the center of the capital, shouting “Leave El-Sisi,” Reuters reporters at the scene said.
Police arrested some of the demonstrators, witnesses said.
Small protests were also held in Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, Suez on the Red Sea as well as the Nile Delta textile town of Mahalla El-Kubra, about 110 kilometers north of Cairo, according to residents and videos posted online.
There was a heavy security presence in downtown Cairo and on Tahrir Square where mass protests started in 2011 which toppled veteran ruler Hosni Mubarak.
Authorities could not be immediately reached to comment. State TV did not cover the incidents.
A pro-government TV anchor said only a small group of protesters had gathered in central Cairo to take videos and selfies before leaving the scene. Another pro-government channel said the situation around the Tahrir Square was quiet.
Mohamed Ali, a building contractor and actor turned political activist who lives in Spain, called in a series of videos for the protest after accusing El-Sisi and the military of corruption.
Last Saturday, El-Sisi dismissed the claims as “lies and slander.”
El-Sisi was first elected in 2014 with 97 percent of the vote, and re-elected four years later with the same percentage, in a vote in which the only other candidate was an ardent El-Sisi supporter. His popularity has been dented by economic austerity measures.
El-Sisi’s supporters say dissent must be quashed to stabilize Egypt, after a 2011 uprising and the unrest that followed, including an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of police, soldiers and civilians.
They also credit him with economic reforms agreed with the International Monetary Fund.

KERBALA, Iraq: A bus bombing killed at least nine people and wounded another six on Friday near Iraq’s holy city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad, local police said.
An explosive device planted on the bus detonated at a northern entrance to the city, setting fire to the vehicle, two police spokesmen in the area said.
They said the wounded were rushed to hospital.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.
Such attacks in the mostly Shiite Muslim south of Iraq have been rare in recent years, especially after the territorial defeat of Daesh in Iraq in 2017 and the routing of its Al-Qaeda predecessors in the mid-2000s.
Daesh insurgents have continued to carry out regular attacks mostly against security forces in the north of the country, however.