Car Bomb Kills 20 Outside Main U.S. Base in Baghdad
Sun January 18, 2004 10:08 AM ET
By Raju Gopalakrishnan and Fiona O'Brien BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber detonated half a ton of explosives outside the U.S. seat of power in Iraq on Sunday, killing at least 20 people in the deadliest attack since the capture of Saddam Hussein.
The explosion in the heart of the Iraqi capital came a day before a key meeting in New York between the United Nations, Iraq's Governing Council and U.S. and British officials on the political future of the country.
The bomb exploded at what the Americans calls the Assassin's Gate, the main entrance to the "Green Zone," formerly Saddam's Republican Palace complex and now the top-security civilian and military headquarters of the U.S.-led administration.
The U.S. confirmed at least 20 deaths, but the toll looked likely to rise. More than seven hours after the blast, soldiers were pulling out bodies of the wreckage, as bulldozers shoveled debris and moved shattered cars.
Officials said many of the bodies were too badly burned or wounded to identify immediately.
A U.S. military spokesman said at least two American contractors were believed to have been killed in the blast, which also wounded more than 100 people, almost all Iraqis.
The explosion shook central Baghdad and sent plumes of black smoke into the mist of the winter morning along the Tigris river. Cars blazed in the street and victims lay in pools of blood. A stream of ambulances ferried away the wounded. U.S. Colonel Ralph Baker said a pickup truck packed with 1,000 pound of explosives blew up outside the gate, where vehicles and people were lined up waiting to enter.
A Reuters Television cameraman saw a woman lying in the road, one foot blown off and a high heeled shoe still on the other. Others lay slumped on the curb or in the roadway.
An Iraqi soldier helped lift a body from the street, pausing briefly as a gunshot rang out in the background.
Hospitals around the capital said they have treated at least 110 people for injuries. U.S. military officials said three U.S. soldiers and three U.S. civilians were among the injured.
WORKING DAY
Sunday is a working day in Iraq and the bomb went off just after 8 a.m. (0500 GMT), when many people would have been on their way to work. Most of the victims were employees waiting to be searched before entering the complex, one witness said.
"I was passing by when the explosion happened," Wissam Muhammad Shaker said. "People were thrown aside, three here, five there. The dead people were workers."
At the nearby Yarmouk Hospital, about 20 people were admitted with blast injuries. At least one man was taken in on a stretcher, his body covered in blood and a transfusion bottle held above him by an attendant.
"I can't hear you, I can't hear," cried Raqad Iyas Ibrahim, sitting on a bed with her head bandaged and blood congealing across her face.
"I saw a car, I really don't know what happened, I saw windows smashing, then I just fell. I don't know, I don't understand," she said, breaking down in sobs.
Insurgents battling U.S. occupation forces regularly attack the U.S. military and those they see as cooperating with them.
As anxious Iraqis waited by the bombsite for news of relatives Sunday afternoon, Iraqi soldiers handed out leaflets promising up to $2,500 for any information leading to the capture of people responsible for anti-coalition attacks.
Dozens of suspected insurgents are captured in raids across the country every week, some later released and others investigated.
BOMB IN BASRA
The last major attack in the capital was a car bomb which went off outside a major city restaurant on New Year's Eve, killing at least eight people and wounding 30.
A roadside bomb injured two British soldiers in the southern city of Basra Sunday, but the wounds were very minor, a British army spokeswoman said.
Saturday, a roadside bomb about 30 km (19 miles) north of Baghdad killed three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi civil defense officials who had been patrolling in a Bradley armored vehicle.
The deaths took the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since last year's invasion to 500, a mounting problem for President Bush in the months before he seeks re-election in November.
Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer has repeatedly said the U.S. will hand over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, despite objections from many Iraqis, including the most influential Shi'ite cleric, who disagree with the U.S. plan to let regional caucuses select a government rather than have direct elections.
Bremer and members of Iraq's Governing Council will meet U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan Monday to try and enlist his support for the U.S. plan. |
