Need for reconciliation

Need for reconciliation

YOUSSIFIYAH, Iraq — A top U.S. commander warned Tuesday that Sunnis who fight al-Qaida in Iraq must be rewarded and recognized as legitimate members of Iraqi society — or else the hard-fought security gains of the past six months could be lost. But the Shiite-dominated government is deeply concerned about the Sunni tribal groups, made up of men who in the past also fought against them — not just the Americans.

The warning from Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the commander of U.S. forces south of Baghdad, came as two separate suicide attacks killed at least 35 people around Iraq and injured scores of others. One of the bombings targeted a funeral procession for two members of a Sunni tribal group who local police said were accidentally killed by U.S. forces in a dawn raid. Lynch has credited these groups for much of the improvement in security in the region he commands, an area about the size of West Virginia and stretching to the Iranian and Saudi Arabian borders.

Escaped tigers kill person

SAN FRANCISCO — Four tigers escaped their cages at the San Francisco Zoo on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring two others, a newspaper reported. One tiger was shot and the other three were brought under control, San Francisco Fire Chief Audrey Lee told the San Francisco Chronicle. It was not immediately clear how the tigers escaped. The zoo has been evacuated. It was open in spite of the holiday. It was unclear whether the victim was a visitor or a zoo worker. Police officers and firefighters are investigating.

Bomb damages office

MADRID, Spain — A small bomb damaged the office of Spain’s governing party in a Basque town an hour after authorities received a warning call from the armed separatist group ETA, an official said Tuesday. No injuries were reported. The Monday evening explosion coincided with the annual televised Christmas Eve speech by King Juan Carlos, who called for unity among political parties in the fight against terrorism. Spain’s Socialist party and the leading conservative opposition Popular Party are divided in recent years over measures to combat ETA, an organization which has killed more than 800 people since the late 1960s in its campaign for an independent Basque homeland in a region straddling northern Spain and southwest France.

Russia tests missile

MOSCOW — Russia’s military on Tuesday successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads — a weapon intended to replace aging Soviet-era missiles. The RS-24 missile was launched from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and its test warheads successfully hit designated targets on the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula some 4,340 miles east, Strategic Missile Forces spokesman Alexander Vovk told The Associated Press.

Vovk said that the missile carried multiple test warheads. The Interfax news agency said the RS-24 is capable of carrying at least three warheads. The Strategic Missile Forces said in a statement that the missile was launched from a mobile launcher. It said the new missile was based on the Topol-M and built by the same design team — Moscow’s Heat Technology Institute led by Yuri Solomonov. The RS-24 was first test-fired successfully in May.

Brother: Fidel involved

HAVANA — Fidel Castro remains on the mend, gaining weight, exercising twice a day and continuing to help make the Cuban government’s top decisions, his brother Raul Castro says. The island’s acting president gave the first clues about his brother’s health in weeks, saying during a Monday speech that he has a “healthier mentality, full use of his mental faculties with some small physical limitations.” At 76, Raul is five years younger than his ailing brother, who has not been seen in public since announcing he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006.

Tourniquets in uniforms

RICHMOND, Va. — As an Army surgeon in the Middle East, Dr. Keith Rose watched a colleague bleed to death when a truck in his convoy was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade. Rose could not get his comrade a tourniquet, which could have helped control the bleeding on his wounded leg, and sat along the mangled wreckage and talked with him as he took his last breath. Once he returned to the U.S., Rose approached BlackHawk, a provider of military and law enforcement gear, with an idea to create clothes with built-in tourniquets.

Associate Press