Suicide bomber kills at least 20 in Baghdad attack
A suicide bomber today blew up his vehicle at a main gate to the headquarters compound of the US-led coalition in Baghdad, killing about 20 people in the deadliest attack since the capture of Saddam Hussein last month.
The dead included two civilians believed to be Americans.
The 8am (5am Irish time) attack on a major street in the heart of the Iraqi capital occurred a day before the top US civil administrator was to meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to ask for the world body’s help in rebuilding Iraq.
Officials said more than 60 people, including six Americans, were injured in the blast on a mist-shrouded morning near the north entrance – known as the “Assassin’s Gate” – to Saddam’s former Republican Palace complex, now used by the US-led occupation authority for headquarters.
Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, deputy commander of the 1st Armoured Division, said the blast occurred “literally at the last point a vehicle could get to without being stopped. The barriers absorbed most of the blast.”
The white Toyota pickup laden with about 1,000 pounds of explosives was flung in the air, engulfing nearby vehicles in flames that claimed most of the lives.
“When the explosion went off, it was very strong,” said Mohammed Jabbar, who works at the Ministry of Planning next to the palace complex.
“It lifted us into the air. People fell on top of one another,” said Jabbar.
Meanwhile, an explosive device being transported in a car exploded near a US Army patrol in the central city of Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, yesterday, killing two Iraqis in the vehicle, including a relative of Saddam.
Two British soldiers were lightly wounded today when a small package detonated at the side of the road while they were on patrol in Basra, the Ministry of Defence said in London.
Oil Minister Ibrahim Mohammed Bahar al-Uloum said on US-funded Al-Iraqya TV that someone tried to bomb the Doura refinery, Iraq’s biggest, on Saturday with two tons of explosives.
The Baghdad bombing was the deadliest single attack and the most daring since Saddam was captured on December 13 near Tikrit. Seventeen people were killed in a suicide bombing in Khaldiyah west of Baghdad the day after Saddam’s arrest.
A spokesman for the Iraqi Governing Council, Hameed al-Kafai, said 20 people were killed and more than 60 injured.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a US military spokesman, said there were “indications” that two of the dead were American citizens, working as contractors. “We are waiting for confirmation,” he said.
The military press office said the contractors were working for the Department of Defence.
The Governing Council blamed the “heinous crime” on terrorists allied with Saddam.
US administrator L. Paul Bremer called the bombing “another clear indication of the murderous and cynical intent of terrorists to undermine freedom, democracy and progress in Iraq. They will not succeed.”
Bremer is in New York for a scheduled meeting tomorrow with Annan to discuss possible solutions to a political deadlock over a US plan for hand over of power to a provisional Iraqi government by June 30.
Soon after the blast in Baghdad, coalition armoured vehicles manoeuvred through the rubble.
Smoke from at least three fires mingled with the thick morning fog. Injured people lying on the road motionless or groaning in pain were helped by other Iraqis.
“The wounded are in big numbers, there are killed, there were people whom we couldn’t take to the hospital,” said engineer Khalid Taleb.
The area is one of the most heavily guarded in the capital. US soldiers guarding the gate usually stand about 20 yards from the road behind coils of barbed wire and concrete barriers.
Iraqi police announced on loudspeakers that coalition forces would give $2,500 (€2,000) to anyone providing information on the perpetrators.
Three US soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb on yesterday, pushing the US death toll in the Iraq conflict to 500.
