Kato
08-20-2003, 10:29 AM
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SYMBOLIC ATTACK: 20 killed at UN building in Baghdad
August 20, 2003
BY DREW BROWN, KEN DILANIAN AND HANNAH ALLAM
FREE PRESS FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A suicide bomber crashed a cement truck laden with explosives into the UN compound in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people, including the top UN representative in Iraq, in a direct attack on one of the principal agencies in charge of rebuilding the country.
Witnesses and officials said the bomber drove the truck into the corner of the building where the office of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations' special representative for Iraq, was. The explosion, which injured at least 100 people, left a crater about 5 feet deep and 15 feet wide and caused a corner of the building to collapse.
UN personnel crawled and ran from the wreckage, their clothes torn and spattered with blood.
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator for Iraq, arrived two hours after the 4:20 p.m. bombing, visibly shaken. Bremer said he thought Vieira de Mello was the target of the attack. He declined to say who he thought might have carried out the bombing, but suggested it was the work of professional terrorists.
"We will leave no stone unturned to find the people who did this," Bremer said.
The brazen strike on the top symbol of international cooperation in Iraq renewed fears that despite the presence of nearly 150,000 U.S. and other coalition troops in the country, no target is safe from terrorist attack. The devastating blast came 12 days after a car bomb killed 19 people at the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, and Tuesday's bombing is believed to be the largest attack ever against a UN facility.
Combined with strikes against an oil pipeline in northern Iraq and a water main in Baghdad during the weekend, the UN bombing also prompted fears that anti-U.S. militants in Iraq, especially foreign terrorists, are shifting their strategy to include attacks on civilians and vulnerable nonmilitary targets. By striking at the center of international humanitarian efforts in Iraq, the terrorists' goal appears to be to further destabilize the country and undermine the faith of Iraqis in the ability of U.S. troops and their allies to protect them.
President George W. Bush said the United States will not be deterred. "The terrorists who struck today showed their fear of progress and their hatred of peace," Bush said in a statement from his ranch in Texas.
UN officials also vowed to continue their mission in Iraq. The UN compound attacked Tuesday was filled with hundreds of people charged with duties like fixing the country's electrical system and providing food for Iraqis.
Fearing car-bomb attacks, U.S. forces in Iraq began erecting more barriers around nonmilitary targets weeks ago. But except for a newly built concrete wall, UN officials at the headquarters refused heavy security. "We don't want a lot of security, because we're here to help the people of Iraq," Salim Lone, the UN spokesman in Baghdad, told CNN.
At least one American -- Richard Hooper of Walnut Creek, Calif., of the UN Department of Political Affairs -- was among the dead. UN staff and U.S. soldiers said more victims may remain in the rubble.
As FBI agents joined the investigation, Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who is rebuilding the Iraqi police force, said it was too early to say whether Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network was behind the attack.
Both Iraqi and U.S. officials have said recently that Iraq is becoming the focus of the international militant Muslim groups determined to wage war against the West, with hundreds of them pouring into the country.
Analysts of Iraq are convinced that militant groups and other regional powers like Iran and Syria -- despite their official denials -- all have an interest in trying to defeat U.S. efforts to install a working democracy in Iraq. Opponents object to both the U.S. presence in Iraq and the idea that the United States might establish a system that would be a viable alternative to their own.
"They want to destabilize the country, to show it's unsafe, that there is no law and order," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish member of the Iraqi Governing Council. He added that in reference to the threat to their own future, "If Iraq is stable, then their turn will come."
REGIME FIGURE CAPTURED: Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former Iraqi vice president known for his ruthlessness against regime enemies, was captured by Kurdish fighters Tuesday in northern Iraq and turned over to U.S. forces, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Ramadan, who was reportedly disguised in peasant clothing when he was caught Monday night, once was considered Iraq's second-most powerful man, but his influence declined in the later years of President Saddam Hussein's regime. He was No. 20 on the U.S. list of 55 most-wanted former regime figures.
Free Press news services contributed to this report.
http://www.freep.com/photos/2003/bombings0819/09bombings0819.jpg
SYMBOLIC ATTACK: 20 killed at UN building in Baghdad
August 20, 2003
BY DREW BROWN, KEN DILANIAN AND HANNAH ALLAM
FREE PRESS FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A suicide bomber crashed a cement truck laden with explosives into the UN compound in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people, including the top UN representative in Iraq, in a direct attack on one of the principal agencies in charge of rebuilding the country.
Witnesses and officials said the bomber drove the truck into the corner of the building where the office of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations' special representative for Iraq, was. The explosion, which injured at least 100 people, left a crater about 5 feet deep and 15 feet wide and caused a corner of the building to collapse.
UN personnel crawled and ran from the wreckage, their clothes torn and spattered with blood.
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator for Iraq, arrived two hours after the 4:20 p.m. bombing, visibly shaken. Bremer said he thought Vieira de Mello was the target of the attack. He declined to say who he thought might have carried out the bombing, but suggested it was the work of professional terrorists.
"We will leave no stone unturned to find the people who did this," Bremer said.
The brazen strike on the top symbol of international cooperation in Iraq renewed fears that despite the presence of nearly 150,000 U.S. and other coalition troops in the country, no target is safe from terrorist attack. The devastating blast came 12 days after a car bomb killed 19 people at the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, and Tuesday's bombing is believed to be the largest attack ever against a UN facility.
Combined with strikes against an oil pipeline in northern Iraq and a water main in Baghdad during the weekend, the UN bombing also prompted fears that anti-U.S. militants in Iraq, especially foreign terrorists, are shifting their strategy to include attacks on civilians and vulnerable nonmilitary targets. By striking at the center of international humanitarian efforts in Iraq, the terrorists' goal appears to be to further destabilize the country and undermine the faith of Iraqis in the ability of U.S. troops and their allies to protect them.
President George W. Bush said the United States will not be deterred. "The terrorists who struck today showed their fear of progress and their hatred of peace," Bush said in a statement from his ranch in Texas.
UN officials also vowed to continue their mission in Iraq. The UN compound attacked Tuesday was filled with hundreds of people charged with duties like fixing the country's electrical system and providing food for Iraqis.
Fearing car-bomb attacks, U.S. forces in Iraq began erecting more barriers around nonmilitary targets weeks ago. But except for a newly built concrete wall, UN officials at the headquarters refused heavy security. "We don't want a lot of security, because we're here to help the people of Iraq," Salim Lone, the UN spokesman in Baghdad, told CNN.
At least one American -- Richard Hooper of Walnut Creek, Calif., of the UN Department of Political Affairs -- was among the dead. UN staff and U.S. soldiers said more victims may remain in the rubble.
As FBI agents joined the investigation, Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who is rebuilding the Iraqi police force, said it was too early to say whether Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network was behind the attack.
Both Iraqi and U.S. officials have said recently that Iraq is becoming the focus of the international militant Muslim groups determined to wage war against the West, with hundreds of them pouring into the country.
Analysts of Iraq are convinced that militant groups and other regional powers like Iran and Syria -- despite their official denials -- all have an interest in trying to defeat U.S. efforts to install a working democracy in Iraq. Opponents object to both the U.S. presence in Iraq and the idea that the United States might establish a system that would be a viable alternative to their own.
"They want to destabilize the country, to show it's unsafe, that there is no law and order," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish member of the Iraqi Governing Council. He added that in reference to the threat to their own future, "If Iraq is stable, then their turn will come."
REGIME FIGURE CAPTURED: Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former Iraqi vice president known for his ruthlessness against regime enemies, was captured by Kurdish fighters Tuesday in northern Iraq and turned over to U.S. forces, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Ramadan, who was reportedly disguised in peasant clothing when he was caught Monday night, once was considered Iraq's second-most powerful man, but his influence declined in the later years of President Saddam Hussein's regime. He was No. 20 on the U.S. list of 55 most-wanted former regime figures.
Free Press news services contributed to this report.