A powerful car bomb ripped the main gate to the headquarters of the United States-led coalition in Iraq on Sunday morning, killing at least 23 and injuring at least 95 among the large number of people lined up for work inside the Baghdad compound.
The car bomb was a suicide bombing, a coalition spokesperson confirmed.
”We’ve received three dead and 30 wounded,” said Dr Mohammed Juma at arrama hospital, raising the toll by three in the devastating attack.
A US military spokesperson earlier said there were 18 killed and 28 wounded according to a toll compiled at its own military hospitals, including 16 Iraqis and two Americans working for the US Defence Department.
The spokesperson said the US military was not counting those brought into local Iraqi hospitals.
A busy central Baghdad street was transformed into a battlefield inferno as flames devoured cars and licked at the brick walls of the compound known as the Green Zone black smoke spewed into the air.
”It was a homicide bomb,” the spokesperson said, adding: ”There are no confirmed US casualties.”
”People were waiting in front and they were injured,” said Haider Mohammed, a passerby who was bleeding from head and leg.
”I was just passing by to work, and suddenly there was a large explosion. I don’t know what caused it. I just heard this huge blast and I was injured.”
The attack is the boldest assault on the symbol of US power in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein nine months ago.
A policeman outside the arched gateway said a car in line to enter the citadel had exploded, sending shrapnel flying and killing and wounding those people waiting to enter the palace grounds.
”It was a car lining up to enter the palace that exploded,” a police officer said on condition of anonymity. ”There were many victims.”
A witness, Ahmad Hassan, said a pick-up truck had driven up to the back of the line and exploded, bursting into flames.
”Soldiers panicked. One was thrown to the ground. I saw an Iraqi coalition employee hit the ground. He was wounded. It was so strong. The blast was so strong. I never heard anything like that before,” said Hassan.
At least four mangled cars and the brick wall of the former palace of Saddam were ablaze as smoke spewed into the sky.
Bradley mechanised vehicles and tanks sealed off the street.
Moahmmed Bashir, a coalition employee waiting to go inside the compound, said he saw five bodies lying on the street.
”There was a pick-up truck and six GMC cars,” he said.
GMC sports utility vehicles are often used by Western contractors and coalition employees.
Soldiers lifted wounded Iraqis from the ground as smoke formed a thick cloud.
”We believe it was a car bomb in the vicinity of assassin’s gate,” a military spokesperson said, using the name for the heavily fortified entrance to the presidential palace, home to the US-run coalition provisional authority. — Sapa-AFP