Bombs on Red Cross, police targets kill 18 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD - Bombers struck four times in Baghdad's morning rush hour on Monday, killing at least 18 people near the Red Cross headquarters and two police stations.

At least two of the explosions appeared to have been suicide bombings, one of them using a vehicle marked as an ambulance.

The attacks were mounted a day after guerrillas rocketed a heavily guarded Baghdad hotel where US Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz was staying, killing a US soldier and wounded 17. Wolfowitz escaped unscathed.

The explosions plunged the city into fear and chaos on the first day of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, as ambulance sirens wailed and black smoke billowed into the air.

One of the suicide attacks, at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headquarters in central Baghdad, killed 10 people and wounded at least 15, an ICRC official said.

One witness said the bomb appeared to have been packed into an ambulance. The force of the blast blew the front wall of the ICRC building inwards, shattering all the windows.

"It is impossible for me to understand the aim of such an action. I am afraid that most of the wounded are Iraqis," ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani told Al Arabiya television. "We only have a few foreigners here as we rely on our Iraqi brethren. This is a hideous act, a reprehensible act against the ICRC."

In the northeast Baghdad, a US military policeman said eight people had been killed in a blast near a police station.

Reuters reporters at the scene saw four people carried out of the rubble and it was not clear if any of them were alive.

Reuters photographer Akram Saleh said he had counted 12 bodies at a central Baghdad hospital, where officials said one belonged to a foreigner, whose nationality was unclear.

Witnesses said the first blast went off at about 8.30 a.m. (0530 GMT) when a vehicle drove towards the ICRC building.

"I saw an ambulance car coming very fast towards the barrier and it exploded," an ICRC guard said.

Brigadier General Mark Hertling said initial indications showed the bombers had used a vehicle with markings of the Red Cross or Red Crescent.

ICRC official Pascal Jansen told Reuters 10 people had been killed. "The death toll is 10 -- two Iraqi guards working for the Red Cross and eight casual labourers going past in a lorry."

He said 15 Iraqi staff of the ICRC had been wounded, while international staff had only superficial injuries. Most ICRC staff had not arrived for work, due to late Ramadan hours.

Hertling said guards had stopped the vehicle from entering the ICRC compound, so the bomber had detonated it about 20m from the compound's sandbagged entrance.

The blast dug a crater about one metre deep and three to four metres across.

Another Reuters photographer said he saw at least three bodies lying among debris at the scene. "The force of the blast was so huge their clothes were blown right off," Chris Helgren said.

An Iraqi woman said two of her children had been wounded in the same explosion. "We were sleeping and the house came down on our heads," Muntaha Khalil told Reuters.

In the northern Shaab district, a US military policeman said eight people were killed near a police station. "There are eight dead, several walking wounded," Sergeant Mike Toole said.

Witnesses to another blast said they had seen a vehicle heading for a police station in the southwest Baya district.

"It was a Landcruiser car that was speeding towards the police station. The (guards) fired on it four times. It turned right and blew up," local resident Mohammed Ali said.

Three wrecked cars lay outside the building, one of them completely destroyed. A car engine lay smoking nearby.

A US officer said there had been four explosions, but had no immediate details on the fourth blast.

ICRC staff arriving for work broke down when they saw the havoc left by the suicide bombing. Women cried hysterically.

"We have been working here since 1980. Our mission should protect us. We did not ask for protection from anyone," ICRC spokeswoman Doumani told reporters.

Overnight, a US soldier was killed in an overnight mortar attack in Abu Ghraib, in the western outskirts of Baghdad, the US military said. That death brought to 110 the number of US soldiers killed in combat in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

- REUTERS


Herald Feature: Iraq