BAGHDAD, 11 September 2003 — A suicide car bomber struck the US intelligence headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil, a Kurdish security official and American military officer said yesterday. Three Iraqis — two of them children — and the bomber were killed. The US military in Baghdad said four “Defense Intelligence Service” officers were wounded along with a Kurdish peshmerga guard at the building.
The Kurdish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three of the wounded Americans suffered serious abdominal injuries from flying glass and were airlifted by helicopter to a US military hospital.
He said the bomber was trying to drive the explosives-packed car into the intelligence compound but that the bomb exploded prematurely just before reaching the target.
Maj. James Bullion, civil affairs executive officer of the 404th Civil Affairs Battalion, Special Operations, said all four wounded Americans were seriously hurt and one of them was in critical condition when airlifted by helicopter to Mosul.
Bullion, speaking at his office three miles outside Arbil, said the blast was felt there. He said the Americans were collecting human intelligence in the region and that the explosion “would have no impact on our operations.”
Forty-one Iraqis were hurt, the Kurdish official said, adding that the suicide bomb vehicle was packed with TNT. He said several homes in the neighborhood, which was cordoned off by US soldiers, were destroyed.
The Kurdish official said the attack was the work of Al-Qaeda. He gave no reason for that assessment, but said he was certain Osama Bin Laden’s organization was behind the attack.
The Tuesday night blast, less than two days before the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, was the fifth bombing in Iraq in five weeks. The first hit the Jordanian Embassy Aug. 7. Next was the United Nations. Attackers then set off a bomb at the home of a well-known Shiite cleric in Najaf. A week later a bomb outside the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf killed at least 107 people including another top cleric. Full Sovereignty Sought: Hundreds of Iraqis opposed to the US-appointed governing council gathered in Baghdad yesterday at the call of monarchists and demanded a swift return of sovereignty. The opposition urged the United Nations “to pass a Security Council resolution for sovereignty to be restored to Iraq as soon as possible and to set a date for the withdrawal of occupying forces.” The meeting decided to send a 30-strong delegation to lobby the Arab League, the European Union and the United Nations as well as “brotherly and friendly countries.”
Representatives of parties, associations and tribal groupings who have no seat on the interim government attended the meeting.
