Associated Press
A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone on Thursday, killing at least eight people, the American military said. At least two lawmakers, and at least 10 other people were wounded.
Thursday's attack came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed in that attack.
Iraqi officials said the bomber struck the cafeteria while several lawmakers were eating lunch.
After the blast, security guards sealed the building and no one — including lawmakers — was allowed to enter or leave.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said no Americans were hurt in the blast.
The bombing came amid the two-month-old security crackdown in Baghdad, which has sought to restore stability in the capital so that the government of Iraq can take key political steps by June 30 or face a withdrawal of American support.
U.S. officials react
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said witness accounts indicated a suicide attack. “We don’t know at this point who it was. We do know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominantly by al-Qaida,” the U.S. military spokesman said in an Associated Press broadcast interview.
At White House, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe condemned the attack by “terrorists and extremists.”
“We’ve known there’s a security problem in Baghdad, which is why the president has structured a new strategy and why Gen. (David) Petraeus and his commanders are carrying it out,” added Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “But this is still early in the process and I don’t think anybody expected there would not be counterefforts by terrorists to undermine the security progress we’re trying to make.”
Sunni, Shiite are fatalities
One of the dead lawmakers was Mohammed Awad, a member of the Sunni National Dialogue Front, said Saleh al-Mutlaq, the leader of the party, which holds 11 seats in Iraq’s legislature. A female Sunni lawmaker from the same list was wounded, he said.
A security official at the building said a second lawmaker, a Shiite member, also was killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
But Mukhlis al-Zamili of the Shiite Fadhila party said the second dead lawmaker was a Kurd, adding that six of those wounded were members of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc.
Al-Zamili also said he believed a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest was behind the attack.
Another member of the National Dialogue Front, Mohammed al-Dayni, also suggested a suicide bomber was behind it.
“I am standing now at the site of the explosion and looking at the severed legs of the person who carried out the operation. If this tells us anything, it tells us that security is lax,” al-Dayni told Iraq’s Sharqiya television.
Earlier in the day, security officials used dogs to check people entering the building in a rare precaution — apparently concerned that an attack might take place.
Green Zone penetrable
The brazen bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can penetrate even the most secure locations. Masses of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are on the streets in the ninth week of a security crackdown in the capital and security measures inside the Green Zone have been significantly hardened.
The U.S. military reported April 1 that two suicide vests were found in the heavily fortified region that also houses the U.S. Embassy and offices of the Iraqi government. A militant rocket attack last month killed two Americans, a soldier and a contractor. A few days earlier, a rocket landed within 100 yards of a building where U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was holding a news conference. No one was hurt.
Khalaf al-Ilyan, one of the three leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, which holds 44 seats, said the attack was “aimed at everyone — all parties — our parliament in general being a symbol and a representative of all segments of Iraqi society.”
Al-Ilyan, who is in Jordan recovering from knee surgery, said the blast also “underlines the failure of the government’s security plan.”
“The plan is 100 percent a failure. It’s a complete flop. The explosion means that instability and lack of security has reached the Green Zone, which the government boasts is heavily fortified,” he said.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said its officials were “investigating the nature and source of the explosion. No embassy employees or U.S. citizens were affected.”
Attacks in the Green Zone are rare.
The worst known attack inside the enclave occurred Oct. 14, 2004, when insurgents detonated explosives at a market and a popular cafe, killing six people. That was the first bombing in the sprawling region.
On Nov. 25, 2004, a mortar attack inside the zone killed four employees of a British security firm and wounded at least 12.
On Jan. 29, 2005, insurgents hit the U.S. Embassy compound with a rocket, killing two Americans — a civilian and a Navy sailor — on the eve of landmark elections. Four other Americans were wounded.
Bridge rescue attempts
In addition to killing 10 people, Thursday’s bombing of the al-Sarafiya bridge wounded 26, hospital officials said, and police were trying to rescue as many as 20 people whose cars plummeted off the span.
The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods — Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area.
Police blamed the attack on a suicide truck bomber, but AP Television News video showed the bridge broken in two places — perhaps the result of two blasts.
Cement pilings that support the steel structure were left crumbling. At the base of one lay a charred vehicle engine, believed to be that of the truck bomb.
“We were astonished more when we saw the extent of damage,” said Ahmed Abdul-Karim, 45, who also lives near the bridge. “I was standing in my garden and I saw the smoke and flying debris.”
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