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Fire, Building Collapse Injures 20 People in Iraq’s Capital

07 November 2022, Iraq, Baghdad: Firefighters work to extinguish a fire that broke out in a building in the Al-Waziriya neighborhood. (dpa)
07 November 2022, Iraq, Baghdad: Firefighters work to extinguish a fire that broke out in a building in the Al-Waziriya neighborhood. (dpa)
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Fire, Building Collapse Injures 20 People in Iraq’s Capital

07 November 2022, Iraq, Baghdad: Firefighters work to extinguish a fire that broke out in a building in the Al-Waziriya neighborhood. (dpa)
07 November 2022, Iraq, Baghdad: Firefighters work to extinguish a fire that broke out in a building in the Al-Waziriya neighborhood. (dpa)

More than two dozen people were injured, including the head of Iraq’s civil defense directorate, when a commercial building in the capital caught fire and then collapsed Sunday, authorities and the state news agency reported.

The official Iraqi News Agency said the civil defense director, Maj. Gen. Kadhim Bohan, and some firefighters were among those injured when the burning building collapsed.

No deaths were reported. No information was immediately available on the cause of the blaze.

Brig. Gen. Qusai Younis, director of civil defense for the Al-Rusafa district of Baghdad, told The Associated Press that at least 28 people had been injured.

He said two of the three stories in the building, which contained warehouses storing flammable materials such as perfume, collapsed due to the fire.

The civil defense announced late Sunday evening that the fire had been fully extinguished and first responders were searching for missing people at the scene.

On Oct. 29, a gas tanker exploded near a soccer field in northeastern Baghdad, killing at least nine people and injuring 10 others. The explosion was found by an investigative committee to be an accident.

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Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: Resolution 1701 Only Tangible Proposal to End Lebanon Conflict

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and US envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut. (AFP file)
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and US envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut. (AFP file)
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Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: Resolution 1701 Only Tangible Proposal to End Lebanon Conflict

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and US envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut. (AFP file)
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and US envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut. (AFP file)

Politicians in Beirut said they have not received any credible information about Washington resuming its mediation efforts towards reaching a ceasefire in Lebanon despite reports to the contrary.

Efforts came to a halt after US envoy Amos Hochstein’s last visit to Beirut three weeks ago.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri dismissed the reports as media fodder, saying nothing official has been received.

Lebanon is awaiting tangible proposals on which it can build its position, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The only credible proposal on the table is United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, whose articles must be implemented in full by Lebanon and Israel, “not just Lebanon alone,” he stressed.

Resolution 1701 was issued to end the 2006 July war between Hezbollah and Israel and calls for removing all weapons from southern Lebanon and that the only armed presence there be restricted to the army and UN peacekeepers.

Western diplomatic sources in Beirut told Asharq Al-Awsat that Berri opposes one of the most important articles of the proposed solution to end the current conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

He is opposed to the German and British participation in the proposed mechanism to monitor the implementation of resolution 1701. The other participants are the United States and France.

Other sources said Berri is opposed to the mechanism itself since one is already available and it is embodied in the UN peacekeepers, whom the US and France can join.

The sources revealed that the solution to the conflict has a foreign and internal aspect. The foreign one includes Israel, the US and Russia and seeks guarantees that would prevent Hezbollah from rearming itself. The second covers Lebanese guarantees on the implementation of resolution 1701.

Berri refused to comment on the media reports, but told Asharq Al-Awsat that this was the first time that discussions are being held about guarantees.

He added that “Israel is now in crisis because it has failed to achieve its military objectives, so it has resorted to more killing and destruction undeterred.”

He highlighted the “steadfastness of the UN peacekeepers in the South who have refused to leave their positions despite the repeated Israeli attacks.”