Eight killed as bomb rocks

Trackback URL

Download PDF

Eight people were killed and another 23 people wounded in an explosion at the Iraqi parliament building on Thursday, a top US military commander said.
‘Our reporting right now indicates eight killed and 23 injured,’ the major general, William Caldwell, said.
An Iraqi security official said earlier that at least two Iraqi lawmakers and a parliamentary official had been killed when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt walked into the building’s canteen with a suitcase.
The attack–a rare strike inside the heavily-fortified Green Zone– came just hours after an attack on a Baghdad bridge that left 10 people dead.
‘A suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt and carrying a briefcase entered the cafeteria. Security was very tight because parliament was meeting,’ a security official said.
‘The flesh of the suicide bomber was scattered across the cafeteria. There was blood everywhere on the floor,’ the official said on condition of anonymity from the scene of the attack.
The prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, condemned the attack as ‘criminal cowardly act’ and the parliament speaker announced a special session would be held on Friday to condemn ‘terrorism.’
The security official named one of the dead MPs as Mohammed Awad, a member of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab party which has 11 seats in the 275-member parliament.
The second killed was a member of the Kurdish Alliance, the second biggest grouping in parliament after the main Shia Muslim alliance, the official said, adding that the third victim was a parliamentary employee.
About seven hours earlier, a suicide bomber blew up a truck on a major bridge across the Tigris River in Baghdad, killing 10 people and sending cars plunging from the wrecked structure into the waters below.
Access to the Green Zone–home to the Iraqi government and foreign embassies–is restricted to visitors carrying picture identity cards and required to pass through multiple checkpoints and metal detectors.
Guerrillas have, however, managed to fire projectiles such as rockets and mortar rounds into the compound from outside its heavily guarded walls.
In October 2004, at least seven people were killed including two American civilians in bombings in the zone claimed by the then leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was slain in June last year.
US national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe condemned Thursday’s bombing as an ‘attack on the democratically elected government of Iraq.’
Asked whether it called into question the effectiveness of the US-led security plan, Johndroe replied: ‘No, I think it shows the determination of the terrorists and extremists.
The British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, of Britain, the closest US ally in Iraq, condemned the blast as the product of ‘twisted minds’ seeking to disrupt the country’s budding democracy.
Another 10 people were killed and 26 wounded in Thursday’s truck bombing on Al-Sarafiyah Bridge, one of the oldest in the Iraqi capital, which collapsed under the force of the blast, a security official said.
River police raced to the scene on patrol boats and divers donned oxygen cylinders to search the murky waters for survivors after officials said four cars tumbled off the bridge.

Leave a Reply