BAGHDAD, 13 October 2003 — Suicide attackers in two cars detonated bombs on a busy commercial avenue yesterday after being stopped from reaching a hotel full of Americans, killing six Iraqi bystanders and wounding dozens of others. A member of Iraq’s interim Governing Council was among the injured.
US military spokesman Lt. Col. George Krivo said two saloon cars crashed at high speed through the security barrier at the heavily fortified Baghdad Hotel and exploded. He said both American and Iraqi security guards opened fire on the vehicles and averted a far greater tragedy by stopping the cars reaching the hotel entrance.
“The cars swerved around and attempted to avoid the checkpoint and then there was a detonation and an explosion,” he told reporters.
Krivo said it was unclear if both cars were packed with explosives or if one of them was a decoy to breach security barriers so the other would have a clear run at the hotel.
The hotel is widely thought to be used by members of the CIA, officials of the US-led coalition and their Iraqi partners in the Governing Council as well as US contractors.
The lunchtime attack sent people fleeing up Saadoun Avenue, over broken window glass from banks, restaurants and shops, past the bloodied bodies of injured. American helicopters and combat vehicles converged on the chaotic scene as black smoke from burning cars billowed over the city. The blast shook buildings and shattered windows blocks away. Sirens wailed as ambulances and fire engines rushed to the scene. “I saw limbs and pieces of flesh everywhere,” security guard Kahin Hussein said. “The US soldiers were picking them up off the ground.”
The six victims and 32 injured who were reported at Al-Kindi Hospital, including four in critical condition, were all Iraqis, authorities said. The US military said three Americans were slightly injured.
At least one guard was reportedly among the dead. The two bombers died.
It was the seventh fatal vehicle bombing in Iraq since early August, attacks that have taken more than 140 lives. None has been reported solved, and all have targeted institutions perceived as cooperating with the US occupation of Iraq.
Last Thursday, a suicide bomber drove his Oldsmobile into a police station in Baghdad’s Sadr City district, killing nine people. Iraqi police chief Ahmad Ibrahim said he suspected supporters of ousted President Saddam Hussein or guerrillas of the Al-Qaeda group. “They thought if they did this the Americans would be afraid and leave Iraq.”
“We will work with the Iraqi police to find those responsible and bring them to justice,” Iraq’s US civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer, said after yesterday’s bombing.
But along Saadoun Avenue, feelings ran high against the Americans and their inability to stop the bombings.
“Hey! Hey! This regime’s a failure!” a crowd chanted in Arabic at a group of US soldiers as the fires raged.
Elsewhere in Iraq, other attacks on Americans continued yesterday. Two US soldiers were slightly injured in a blast, apparently from a roadside bomb, just outside the main US Army base in Tikrit, 200 km (120 miles) north of Baghdad. Another soldier was wounded when his convoy came under small-arms and grenade attack near Tuz, 100 km (60 miles) south of the northern city of Kirkuk.
US troops in pursuit of the attackers on the convoy in the Tuz area detained three individuals and uncovered a weapons cache that included numerous rocket propelled grenade launchers and a submachine gun, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division.
Meanwhile, soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division arrested three suspects in an overnight raid that followed a series of mortar attacks Saturday evening against the Tikrit army base.
Washington is pushing for a new Security Council resolution giving the United Nations a broader mandate to try to persuade reluctant countries to help in stabilizing Iraq.
Turkey has agreed to send troops, but Iraq’s Governing Council, handpicked by Washington, is resisting the move, saying neighboring countries have too many of their own strategic interests in Iraq to be peacekeepers.
Turkey said yesterday its troops could help guarantee peace in Iraq.
The United States will make the final decision on Turkish troops, but Council members said they were still in negotiations.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said the United Nations cannot play a political role in Iraq under the terms envisaged in the current draft US resolution.
