BAGHDAD, IRAQ - A suicide bomber drove an ambulance packed with explosives into security barriers outside the international Red Cross building on Monday, killing about 10 people as insurgents marked the first day of the holy month of Ramadan with a wave of attacks.
Three other bombs rocked targets across Baghdad on Monday, a day after insurgents attacked the heavily guarded Al Rasheed Hotel, killing an American colonel. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was in the hotel, but was unhurt.
In two other attacks, three American soldiers were killed overnight - two in Baghdad and one in Abu Ghraib on the western edge of the city, U.S. officials said. Four others were wounded in the two attacks.
The deaths bring to 112 the number of U.S. troops killed by hostile fire since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1.
Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling said three other vehicles exploded Monday in the Baghdad area, at least two of them against police stations.
"From what our indications are, none of those bombers got close to the target either," Hertling said. However, Iraqi police reported casualties in other blasts.
The Red Cross attack was "definitely" a suicide bombing, Hertling said, adding that up to 10 Iraqis were killed and about 10 others were injured in that attack. Dr. Allawi Attiyah of the Ibn al-Nafeez hospital put the total at 10 dead and 12 injured.
Hertling said he believed the attacks may have been timed with the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in order to increase the sense of unease among the 5 million people in this turbulent city. Muslims abstain from food, drink, cigarettes and sex during daylight hours during the holy month, and religious feelings run high.
Witnesses said the explosion at the Red Cross occurred when the driver rammed the ambulance into security barriers - oil drums filled with sand - and blew up the vehicle about 8:30 a.m.
The blast caused extensive damage inside the building of the International Committee of the Red Cross, employees said.
Ghani Kadim, 50, a cigarette vendor, said he watched an ambulance move down the street toward the Red Cross building. "As it entered the front gate of the compound, it exploded," he said.
Red Cross spokeswoman Nada Doumani said there were casualties among Iraqi staffers of the Red Cross but she gave no figures and did not say if they were dead or injured. She said the building normally has about 100 people, mostly Iraqis, working there but it was unclear how many were in their offices.
"Of course we don't understand why somebody would attack the Red Cross," she said. "It's very hard to understand."
Doumani said the international Red Cross has been working in Iraq since 1980 and "has not been involved in any politics." Asked if the organization would remain in Iraq, she replied: "I don't even know what we're going to do."
The Red Cross had said at the end of August that it was scaling back its expatriate staff after receiving warnings the organization might be a target.
Monday's attack was the biggest bombing against an international organization since a truck bomb exploded at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, on Aug. 19, killing 22 people, including top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, and injuring more than 150 others.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw reacted with "shock and outrage" to Monday's Red Cross attack.
"The fact that terrorists have yet again targeted not U.S. or U.K. troops but an international organization ... shows the depth of depravity to which they stoop," he said before entering an European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.
The U.S. general said it was "a great day for the Iraqi police" because security controls prevented the bombers from reaching their targets.
The blast blew down a 40-foot section of the front wall in front of the three-story Red Cross building, demolished a dozen cars in the area and apparently broke a water main, flooding the streets.
"The ambulance stopped in front of the line of barrels we have had in front to protect the building and then it exploded," one Red Cross employee, who would not give his name, said.
He said the inside of the building was heavily damaged and littered with shattered glass, broken doors, hinges and toppled book cases. The blast left a crater five yards across, which filled with water as firefighters put out the blaze in the vehicle.
The blasts occurred one day after a rocket attack on the Al Rasheed Hotel, where U.S. military and coalition officials lived and Wolfowitz was staying. An American colonel was killed and 18 people were injured in the Sunday attack.
Wolfowitz said the strike against the Al Rasheed Hotel, from nearly point-blank range, "will not deter us from completing our mission" in Iraq.
But the bold blow at the heart of the U.S. presence here clearly rattled U.S. confidence that it is defeating Iraq's shadowy insurgents.
"We'll have to get the security situation under control," Secretary of State Colin Powell told NBC's "Meet the Press."
The assault was likely planned over at least the past two months, a top U.S. commander said, as the insurgents put together the improvised rocket launcher and figured out how to wheel it into the park just across the street from the hotel.
U.S. officials and officers fled from the Al Rasheed, some still in pajamas or shorts to a nearby convention center. The concrete western face of the 18-story building was pockmarked with a half-dozen or more blast holes, and windows shattered in at least two dozen rooms.
The U.S. command said the wounded included seven American civilians, four U.S. military personnel and five non-U.S. civilians working for the coalition. Two Iraqi security guards also were hurt. The command did not immediately identify the dead American, but Wolfowitz said he was a U.S. colonel.
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April 19th, 2024
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