Baghdad blast kills 11, governor assassinated

8.15am

BAGHDAD - A suspected suicide car bombing killed 11 people and wounded 30 on Wednesday in the first big guerrilla attack in Baghdad since an interim Iraqi government took over from US-led occupiers on June 28.

"This is naked aggression against the Iraqi people," said Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, standing by burned-out vehicles near a main entrance to the heavily defended "Green Zone" compound.

"We will bring these criminals to justice," he vowed.

Gunmen killed the governor of Mosul, Osama Kashmoula, and his two bodyguards in a grenade attack on his convoy as he was driving towards the northern city.

Kashmoula was the most senior official to be assassinated in Iraq since May, when a suicide bomber killed the head of Iraq's now-defunct Governing Council.

A US military spokesman said 11 Iraqis had been killed, including four National Guards, and 30 wounded in the Baghdad blast.

Deafened passers-by and a man with blood oozing from his chest staggered from the site of the explosion.

"My God, my God," screamed one panicked woman among the scores of workers, visitors and journalists lining up for security checks to get into the US-defended area.

The blast occurred hours after news that Islamist militants led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had killed one of two Bulgarian truck drivers held hostage in Iraq. They threatened to kill the second within 24 hours unless US-led forces freed prisoners.

Bulgaria said it would not pull its 470 troops out of Iraq despite the killing of the driver and the plight of the other.

In stark contrast, the Philippines was preparing to bring its soldiers home early to save the life of a Filipino hostage.

"He is safe and there is no more risk of him being executed," said a Foreign Ministry official in Manila, referring to kidnapped truck driver Angelo de la Cruz.

A Saudi company said it was ready to quit Iraq to meet the demands of militants holding an Egyptian truck driver hostage.

"We will withdraw our operation there to save the life of the hostage, our driver," Faisal al-Neheit, owner of Faisal al-Neheit Transport Company, where Mohammed al-Gharabawi has worked for eight years, told Al Jazeera television.

The Baghdad blast occurred at a checkpoint where cars queue for access to the sprawling Green Zone beside the river Tigris. It houses government buildings, the US and British embassies, and the offices of many foreign contractors.

The entrance has long been recognised as a tempting target for bombers, but despite elaborate fortifications, people forced to wait just outside the zone have remained vulnerable.

"At 9:15am this morning a vehicle pulled into the search lane and tried to get into the control point and detonated," a US officer said. "We're pretty sure it was a suicide bomber."

Allawi said he believed the bomb attack was a response to a crackdown on criminals, referring to police raids that have netted more than 500 suspects in Baghdad this week.

Guerrillas clashed with a US patrol in the western city of Ramadi, a bastion of Sunni Muslim insurgents, and a hospital doctor said three people had been killed and 19 wounded.

Iraqi police officer Nawaf Jabbar said a US vehicle had been destroyed and several soldiers wounded in gun battles.

The Baghdad bombing coincided with a public holiday to mark Iraq's 1958 coup that toppled the British-backed monarchy.

In the southern city of Najaf, police said they had arrested members of a cell linked to al Qaeda on Wednesday and blamed for bomb attacks in Najaf and Kerbala that killed scores of people.

Death threats still hung over the three foreign hostages.

Al Jazeera said it would not air a video tape from Zarqawi's Tawheed and Jihad group showing the beheading of the Bulgarian. But it showed him blindfolded in an orange jumpsuit kneeling before three masked men.

Bulgarian media identified the dead man as Georgi Lazov, 30. He was kidnapped with Ivailo Kepov, 32, after they had delivered cars in Mosul on June 27.

Militants led by Zarqawi, a Jordanian who Washington describes as its top target in Iraq and a suspected al Qaeda ally, have already beheaded an American and a South Korean.

Zarqawi warned Allawi that he will not escape death at the hands of the militant group, according to a statement dated July 8 and posted on an Islamist website on Wednesday.

Another group has said it will kill de la Cruz unless Manila withdraws its troops by July 20, a month earlier than planned.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq