A suicide bomber drove an ambulance packed with explosives into security barriers outside the international Red Cross building on Monday, and an American general said about 10 people were killed in the blast. The bombing came a day after insurgents attacked a Baghdad hotel, killing a US colonel.
Three other American soldiers were killed overnight — two in Baghdad and one in Abu Ghraib on the western edge of the city, US officials said. Four others were wounded in the two attacks.
The deaths bring to 112 the number of US troops killed by hostile fire since President George Bush declared an end to major combat May 1.
Brigadier General Mark Hertling said three other vehicles exploded on Monday in the Baghdad area, at least two of them against police stations, on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
”From what our indications are, none of those bombers got close to the target either,” Hertling said. However, Iraqi police reported about a dozen Iraqis were killed in the three other blasts.
The Red Cross attack was ”definitely” a suicide bombing, Hertling said, adding that up to 10 Iraqis were killed and about 10 others were injured in that attack. Dr Allawi Attiyah of the Ibn al-Nafeez hospital put the total at 10 dead and 12 injured.
Meanwhile in Fallujah, 65 kilometres west of Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded as a US military convoy passed, witnesses said. They said at least four Iraqi civilians were killed after the Americans opened fire. There was no confirmation of the incident from the US command and no word on US casualties.
Hertling said he believed the attacks may have been timed with the start of Ramadan in order to increase the sense of unease among the five-million people in this turbulent city. Muslims abstain from food, drink, cigarettes and sex during daylight hours during the holy month, and religious feelings run high.
Witnesses said the explosion at the Red Cross occurred when the driver rammed the ambulance into security barriers — oil drums filled with sand — and blew up the vehicle about 8:30 a.m.
The blast caused extensive damage inside the building of the International Committee of the Red Cross, employees said.
Ghani Kadim (50) a cigarette vendor, said he watched an ambulance move down the street toward the Red Cross building. ”As it entered the front gate of the compound, it exploded,” he said.
Red Cross spokesperson Nada Doumani said there were casualties among Iraqi staffers of the Red Cross but she gave no figures and did not say if they were dead or injured. She said the building normally has about 100 people, mostly Iraqis, working there but it was unclear how many were in their offices.
”Of course we don’t understand why somebody would attack the Red Cross,” she said. ”It’s very hard to understand.” She said the international Red Cross has been working in Iraq since 1980 and ”has not been involved in any politics.” Asked if the organisation would remain in Iraq, she replied: ”I don’t even know what we’re going to do.”
The US general said it was ”a great day for the Iraqi police” because security controls prevented the bombers from reaching their targets.
However, Mouwafak al-Rabii, a Shiite Muslim member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said the United States must speed up the training of Iraqi police and soldiers and employ ruthless measures to crush the insurgency.
”There is no doubt about it that we need to change the rules of engagement with these people,” al-Rabii told CNN. ”The rules of engagement now are too lenient.”
The blast blew down a 12-metre section of the front wall in front of the three-story Red Cross building, demolished a dozen cars in the area and apparently broke a water main, flooding the streets.
”The ambulance stopped in front of the line of barrels we have had in front to protect the building and then it exploded,” one Red Cross employee, who would not give his name, said.
He said the inside of the building was heavily damaged and littered with shattered glass, broken doors, hinges and toppled book cases. The blast left a crater five yards across, which filled with water as firefighters put out the blaze in the vehicle.
Another witness, Maiytham Mohammed, said the blast knocked him off his feet and ”there was huge smoke from the area.”
The blasts occurred one day after a rocket attack on the Al Rasheed Hotel, where US military and coalition officials lived. An American colonel was killed and 18 people were injured in the attack on Sunday. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was in the building but escaped injury.
Wolfowitz said the strike against the Al Rashid Hotel, from nearly point-blank range, ”will not deter us from completing our mission” in Iraq.
But the bold blow at the heart of the US presence here clearly rattled US confidence that it is defeating Iraq’s shadowy insurgents.
”We’ll have to get the security situation under control,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told NBC’s Meet the Press. The assault was likely planned over at least the past two months, a top US commander said, as the insurgents put together the improvised rocket launcher and figured out how to wheel it into the park just across the street from the hotel.
US officials and officers fled from the Al Rasheed, some still in pajamas or shorts to a nearby convention center. The concrete western face of the 18-story building was pockmarked with a half-dozen or more blast holes, and windows shattered in at least two dozen rooms.
The US command said the wounded included seven American civilians, four US military personnel and five non-US civilians working for the coalition. Two Iraqi security guards also were hurt. The command did not immediately identify the dead American, but Wolfowitz said he was a US colonel.
The modern, 462-room Al-Rashid, housing civilian officials of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority and US military personnel, is a symbol of the occupation. The assault highlighted the vulnerability of even heavily guarded US facilities in Iraq, where American forces sustain an average of 26 lower-profile attacks daily, and where Wolfowitz came to assess ways to defeat the stubborn 6-month-old insurgency.
More than 15 hours after the rocket fire and after US security officials flooded the neighborhood, two explosions went off in the same downtown area. An Iraqi policeman said an assailant fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. convoy next to the al-Mansour Hotel, about two kilometers (a mile) away from the Al Rasheed.
There were no casualties, he said.
US officials feared the insurgents would stage increased attacks with the weekend lifting of an overnight curfew in Baghdad and the reopening of a main city bridge.
”Any time we demonstrate a return to normalcy, there are those who will push back at that,” said Brigadier General Mark Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division who is responsible for security in Baghdad. – Sapa-AP