At Least 20 Killed in Bomb Attack in Baghdad
By EDWARD WONG and JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
Published: January 18, 2004
AGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 18 — A powerful car bomb exploded at the main gate of the American occupation headquarters here on Sunday morning, killing at least 20 people and wounding at least 60 others, military officials said. Two of the dead were identified as people working for the Department of Defense or a contractor, but it was unclear what their nationalities were. The others killed were Iraqi civilians, and most of the wounded were Iraqis waiting to enter the compound on foot or in cars.
Though guerilla fighters have lobbed mortar rounds into the heavily fortified American headquarters, a zone that contains the former Republican Palace and other main buildings of the deposed regime, this was the first time anyone has used a car bomb to attack the area since the occupation authorities took it over last April. A person inside the car, a white Toyota pick-up truck that was loaded with about 1,000 pounds of explosives, was killed, military officials said, and the blast destroyed six or seven nearby vehicles and set four ablaze.
The bomb, which exploded at about 8 a.m., could be heard from more than a mile away, and the smell of smoke spread quickly across the Tigris River into downtown Baghdad. Dozens of American soldiers surrounded the scene and began waving people away from the burning wreckage even as firefighters struggled to put out the flames. At 8:40 a.m., at least three cars still lay smoldering, and a mangled white bus sat in the middle of the wide street, its windows completely shattered, its body blackened by the explosion.
The dead and wounded lay on the ground surrounded by debris as ambulances raced onto the scene. A military official said, however, that concrete barriers had absorbed much of the blast. Some of the injured were taken into a military hospital in the compound.
The bombing appeared to be an effort by attackers to strike as close as they could to the heart of the American authority in Baghdad one day before senior American and Iraqi officials were to meet at the United Nations. Those officials, including L. Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator here, and several members of the Iraqi Governing Council, are expected to discuss political complications surrounding the handover of sovereignty scheduled for June 30.
Because the walled-off compound is so large and the gate is at its very perimeter, at the foot of a bridge from downtown, the casualties were mainly Iraqi civilians waiting in line at checkpoints, some in cars, to go to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority and other organizations inside the compound. Thousands of Americans and Iraqis also live inside the compound.
“The attack, which took place at the height of rush hour in Baghdad, was clearly timed to claim the maximum number of innocent victims,” Mr. Bremer, who was in the United States, said in a written statement. “Once again, it is innocent Iraqis who have been murdered by these terrorists in a senseless act of violence.”
Weesam Kadhum, a 22-year-old civil engineer working in a building just 300 feet outside the main entrance, sometimes referred to as the Assassins’ Gate, said he saw shrapnel fly through the air.
“I heard the bomb go off and saw the light from the explosion,” he said. “Suddenly there was this bright light, and small pieces rained down from the sky. I ran to my house across the street. I’ve only now realized that I don’t have any blood or injuries on me.”
The blast shattered the windows of Mr. Khadum’s home and those of other nearby buildings. As Mr. Khadum led a visitor to his home, his injured 4-year-old son, Wadah, began yelling from the window, “My father’s coming, my father’s coming!”
A wounded man lying in Al Karama hospital, Ahmed Ali, said American soldiers opened fire immediately after the explosion, but an American military official said soldiers did not begin shooting. Mr. Ali was among 200 or so people standing at the gate to be let into the compound, he said.
“I felt as if a storm had hit,” said Mr. Ali, 23, the manager of a water pump in the compound. “There was a huge blast and smoke and fire everywhere. Then the Americans began shooting. Anyone who could run ran. Brothers ran from brothers, relatives from relatives. Only the injured stayed behind. You can’t blame the soldiers for being scared.”
A coalition spokesman said the two dead people associated with the Department of Defense were wearing department uniforms or carrying some items linked to the department. One American soldier suffered minor injuries, and a member of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a militia group being trained by the Americans, was also wounded, said Capt. Aaron J. Hatok, a spokesman for the First Armored Division, which controls most of Baghdad.
In the meeting in New York on Monday, American and Iraqi officials are expected to try to persuade Secretary General Kofi Annan to send a United Nations delegation to Iraq to lend legitimacy to caucus-style elections for a transitional assembly to appoint an interim government. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq, renewed a call for direct elections on Jan. 11, hobbling the Bush administration’s plans.
The United Nations withdrew from Iraq after a truck bomb exploded outside its headquarters here in August, killing 23 people, including Mr. Annan’s senior envoy here, Sergio Vieria de Mello.
The bombing on the American headquarters was the deadliest in Baghdad since that attack on the United Nations and a coordinated one in late October on the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross and several police stations that killed more than three dozen people. The United Nations has said it is reluctant to return to Iraq until the security situation improves, and it is unclear how the bombing on Sunday will affect discussions at the upcoming meeting in New York.
Early Sunday morning, the smell of smoke quickly spread across the Tigris River. Soldiers parked a tank in the middle of Jumhuriya Bridge, known as the Assassins’ Bridge, to seal off one main road leading to the American headquarters, which encompasses the Republican Palace and other buildings used by Saddam Hussein and several rulers before him. American officials have used the walled-off area, called the “green zone,” as their headquarters since the fall of Baghdad last April.
Several people wandered east across the bridge with dazed expressions on and blood covering their faces and clothing. Among them was Jasim Muhammad, 32, a taxi driver whose shattered red Volkwagon Passat sat on the west end of the bridge, several hundred feet from the blast site.
“There were people lying all over the street,” said Jasim Muhammad, 32, who was about to drive over the bridge when the bomb went off. “The terrorists are hurting the innocent people of Iraq.”
A half-dozen American soldiers pushed a crowd away from Mr. Muhammad’s sedan, saying it had to be checked for bombs. They led two dogs to the car. After the dogs sniffed around for a minute, the soldiers took them away.
“What happened to you?” a man walking to the bridge asked Mr. Muhammad.
“That’s my car,” Mr. Muhammad said, nodding to the Passat.
“That’s your car?” the man asked incredulously.
Two construction workers stared at the wreckage from a half-built home. The explosion had covered them in gray dust from the construction site. They had been hired just to work for the day, they said.
“I saw a car go up in flames and many people collapsing,” said one of the workers, Septi Joma, 35. “I’m not sure how many people died, but I saw them fall. There was blood all over their bodies, on their faces.”
At 9:20 a.m., the chief of the Iraqi police forces, Ahmed Ibrahim, arrived in a squad car and was quickly ushered behind the perimeter. Soldiers began pushing onlookers east across the bridge. “We are offering $2,500 to anyone with information about the bombing,” someone said in Arabic through a bullhorn.
Mr. Kadhum, the civil engineer, stared at his home, where his father waved at him from a blown-out window on the second floor. “Of course we’re scared living here, but where can we go?” he said. “We don’t have any place to go.”
Neela Banerjee contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article. |
