Dozens of casualties in Iraq

2004-06-14 10:15

Baghdad - At least seven people were killed and 50 wounded on Monday when a car bomb exploded as three Western-style all-terrain vehicles passed by a busy Baghdad street, with the blast knocking part of the front off a building and destroying the cars.

A photographer saw a charred corpse in a burnt sports-utility vehicle and four bodies covered in sheets at the site of the blast near Sadoun Street, a main commercial boulevard lined with restaurants, shops and residences.

At least seven people were killed and about 50 wounded in the bombing, according to a tally by three hospitals.

A convoy of Western-style vehicles, two tan Mitsubishi jeeps and one GMC, sped down the street when the explosion struck at 08:15 (04:15 GMT).

Major Mohammed Saleh, the top policeman at the scene, said: "It was a three-car American convoy. A suicide car bomber in a small Volkswagen Brazilia drove between the cars and blew himself up," Saleh said.

Suicide bombing

"For sure it was a suicide bombing," said Sergeant Sayed Khamat, who witnessed the attack.

Other witnesses said they thought a parked car was detonated by remote control as the convoy sped by, but there was no independent confirmation.

Khamat said the sports-utility vehicles destroyed looked like the cars used by the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority.

He said three people, badly injured, were taken out of the first vehicle and rushed to hospital. One vehicle was blown into nearby Tahrir Square, and a third civilian car was burnt in the blast. It was not clear if it was the attacker's car.

A US military officer said initial reports indicated the casualties were all Iraqis, but they were still investigating whether any Westerners had been hurt.

The area had been hit by a small roadside bomb just fifteen minutes before the major blast, but it caused no real damage, he added.

The explosion completely devoured one of the all-terrain vehicles, reducing it to burning chunks of metal. Bits of flesh were strewn on the pavement.

No, no, America

An angry crowd started to yell, "No, No, America, No, No, Governing Council," and to hit the burnt-out jeeps with sticks and torched one of them.

People piled wounded on to the back of trucks and inside cars and rushed them to the hospital. Some medics bandaged wounded and bloodied Iraqis on the pavement. Wounded Iraqis leaned on rescuers as they escaped the collapsed building.

Since the new Iraqi caretaker government was unveiled on June 1, there has been a wave of car bombings and assassinations of government officials. At least seven people were killed and 23 wounded in a suicide bombing here Sunday.

Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, president of Iraq's interim government, warned in an interview with NBC television of a "terrible" time ahead before security could be restored.

- SAPA