UN bomb probe focusses on security guards

The United Nations had continued to employ them after the regime fell.

The placement of the truck bomb and the timing of the attack had raised suspicions, said Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who is working to re-establish an Iraqi police force.

The truck was placed as near as it could have been to the office of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top UN envoy and one of 23 people killed in the attack.

It went off as a high level official meeting was in progress in the office.

“Would the security guards have access to that information? Would the people who work in that building for any other reason have access to it? How were the schedules distributed?” Keric said.

“They are very basic parts of an investigation, and they are non-accusatory.”

He said some of the Iraqi personnel at the UN compound initially refused to co-operate with the authorities and were being interrogated.

“There are concerns about some of the people who were working there,” he said “It is all under investigation at this point.”

Kerik warned other non-governmental agencies to make sure their security staffs were clear of ties to the former regime.

“They were some of the most treacherous, and if we still have them running around in a capacity where they will have access to important information then that is something we have to be concerned with,” he said.

Kerik said he believed the blast was a suicide bombing.

“We know that an operator drove the vehicle down the driveway, pulled alongside the wall and the vehicle was detonated,” he said.

While he said it was too early to say who was responsible for the blast, he said he was positive it was not planned personally by Saddam, who is still at large.

“This is absolutely in my opinion not coming from Saddam, this guy is travelling all around the country, probably in about three or four different locations a day, I am confident he does not have the time to sit around and plan these resistance attacks,” he said.

The top US civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, attended a short ceremony at Baghdad International Airport today, at which Vieira de Mello’s body was carried onto a Brazilian Air Force plane bound for Geneva.

A previously unknown group calling itself the Armed Vanguards of a Second Muhammed Army has claimed responsibility for the unprecedented suicide attack.

In a statement to an Arabic TV station, the group pledged “to continue fighting every foreigner (in Iraq) and to carry out similar operations”.

Although there was no way to verify the claim, but Gen John Abizaid, the head of US Central Command, said he was aware of a group with a similar name, but did not elaborate.

He warned that terrorism “is emerging as the number one security threat” in Iraq.

The al-Qaida-linked group Ansar al-Islam, based in northern Iraq since before the war, has “definitely established” cells in Baghdad and foreign fighters have been entering the country from Syria, Abizaid said.

Two more US soldiers have been killed, military officials said today. They brought the American combat death toll to 179, 32 more than were killed during the first Gulf War.

One soldier was killed in action yesterday near al Hilla, 34 miles south of Baghdad, said Spc Margo Doers.

The second, also yesterday, was from the 1st Armoured Division based in Baghdad. No details were given of how he died. Sixty-five US soldiers have been killed since President Bush declared major combat over in Iraq on May 1.

Six US soldiers were wounded today when their five-ton truck ran over a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Baiji, 125 miles north of Baghdad.

One was in critical condition awaiting surgery, a spokeswoman said.

Another previously unknown group said today that it had captured two American soldiers during an attack on a convoy west of Baghdad. It sent two ID cards to a Lebanese TV station, but the Pentagon denied the report and said both of the individuals were safe and in the hands of the US military.