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Bomb Near U.N. Baghdad HQ Kills 2, Injures 17
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U.S.
soldiers secure the scene of the bombing near U.N. HQ
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Additional
Reporting By Sobhy Haddad, IOL Correspondent
BAGHDAD,
September 22 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - An Iraqi security
guard was killed and up to 17 people injured, most of them security
guards, were injured on Monday, September 22, when a car bomber blew
himself up near the U.N. headquarters where 22 people died in a blast
last month.
The
explosion went off shortly after 8:00 am (0400 GMT) as Iraqi security
guards were about to check a car at the entrance to the rear parking lot
of the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Antonia
Paradela, a spokeswoman for the United Nations, said that most of the 17
wounded were Iraqi security guards.
Sean
Kirley, a U.S. military spokesman, earlier said that the Iraqi guard and
the bomber had been killed and 12 people were wounded.
"It
apparently was a suicide bombing," Captain Kirley told reporters at
the site, which U.S. troops sealed off while at least two helicopters
patrolled above.
Other
officers and witnesses put the number of wounded at 10.
Kirley
said that the bomb was packed in a small sedan that pulled up to a
checkpoint outside the parking lot for U.N. workers behind the hotel.
The driver was stopped by security guards for a routine check.
"The
bomber was engaged by a security individual. ... The bomb exploded at
that time," the captain said.
An
AFP photographer saw the charred body of the security guard lying on the
ground.
Ali
Ali-Defaee, a U.N. truck driver, was in the queue at the parking lot and
saw security guards approach the bomber to inspect the sedan.
"The
car was behind us and then it exploded," Defaee said.
Margreet
Shamoul, who lives nearby, said she heard an explosion and immediately
rushed to the U.N. building where her daughter works.
She
complained that adequate security had not been installed in the area.
"There
is no safety for us from the threats of saboteurs," she said.
"We can only hope the United States will provide more
security."
The
attack was the sixth car bombing in U.S.-occupied Iraq in less than
seven weeks, leaving a total of more than 120 people dead.
On
August 19, a massive car bomb devastated
U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing at least 17 people, including the
top U.N. envoy in Iraq.
On
Sunday, September 21, an attack on a U.S. convoy at Al-Dulou’iya town,
some 80 km to the north of Baghdad, destroyed two American military
vehicles, but the U.S. troops sealed off the area around the venue of
the attack to keep reporters away from the place.
About
20 mortar bombs were also fired at U.S. forces on the edge of the
northern Iraqi town of Baaquba, witnesses said Monday.
The
attack took place about 11:00 pm on Sunday night (1900 GMT), said Amar
Abdulakarim, 30, and Hussein Abdullah, 28.
However,
they could not provide any estimate of possible casualties or damage.
‘Saddam’
Meanwhile,
the spokesman for the Iraqi Royal Democratic Alliance Dr. Nabeel
Al-Janaby, told reporters that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has
decided to hand himself over the U.S. forces.
He
said that Saddam Hussein had laid certain conditions for his surrender,
including the safety for him and members of his family.
Foreign
press reports said yesterday the former strong man of Iraq had been
negotiating his surrender with the U.S. General in charge of Coalition
Forces in Iraq in coordination with U.S. Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice.
They
said that the surprise visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Ramsfeld
was related to Saddam’s surrender conditions.
The
former Iraqi leader, according to those reports, had offered giving the
U.S. detailed reports about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction
and the billions of dollars of his accounts abroad, in return for
allowing him and his family to immigrate to the eastern European
republic of Belarus.
Saddam’s
two sons, Uday and Qusay, were
killed in a U.S. attack on a mansion in the northern Iraqi city of
Mosul in July 2003 and his two daughters Raghad and Rana have been given
asylum in Jordan.
Saddam,
whose whereabouts have been unknown since his ouster, has only been
heard of in a series of audiotapes attributed to him by Arab satellite
TV stations which U.S. intelligence has deemed to be probably authentic.
The
latest of these audiotape attributed to Saddam was shown
by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel in which he called on the
U.S.-led occupying forces to leave the country.
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