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Bomb made from Saddam stocks
21/08/2003 10:00 - (SA)
D'Arcy Doran
Baghdad - The bomb that devastated the United Nations offices here, killing at least 20 people, was made of munitions from Saddam Hussein's old arsenal - a single 225kg bomb as well as Soviet-era artillery, mortar shells and hand grenades, a Federal Bureau of Investigation investigator said on Wednesday.
Authorities said it was too early to say who was behind Tuesday's attack - Saddam loyalists or foreign terrorists. Soldiers and rescue workers were still working to pull bodies from the rubble and investigators found remains they said might be those of the suicide attacker who drove the truckload of explosives.
FBI agents and rescue workers dug carefully to avoid setting off any unexploded ordnance left over from the bomb that tore apart the three-story Canal Hotel late on Tuesday afternoon, killing the top UN official Sergio Vieira de Mello, and at least 19 others. About 100 others were injured.
Traces of mortar shells and grenades were found at the blast site, said FBI special agent Thomas Fuentes.
The attackers packed a Soviet-made Kamaz flatbed truck with more than 450kg of old munitions, including the 225kg bomb, he said.
Iraq a 'massive munitions dump'
"These munitions were probably in the possession of the Iraqi military during Saddam's regime," Fuentes said. "Someone with access to large military cache put them on the truck and drove it down an open street."
Weapons caches have turned up in United States army searches so often throughout Iraq that some soldiers describe the country as a massive munitions dump.
The bomb attack bore the fingerprints of Saddam loyalists, said Iraqi officials, citing investigators' reports.
Paul Bremer, the US administrator for Iraq, cautioned against blaming foreign terrorists for the attack, but did not rule them out.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said from Sweden that the United Nations "will not be intimidated" and that its work in Iraq would continue.
But UN operations in Iraq were suspended for the time being, with Iraqi employees being told to stay home and foreign staffers directed to remain in their hotels.
The world body also began what it called a "partial evacuation" by flying 45 staff to Amman, Jordan, said UN officials there.
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund said they also pulled their staff out of Iraq on Wednesday.
Reviewing security procedures
In Washington, US defence secretary Donald H Rumsfeld said on Wednesday there were no immediate plans to bolster American forces in Iraq.
Later in the day, after returning to the New York headquarters, Annan said both the United States and the United Nations had made mistakes and the world body was reviewing its security procedures.
Bremer said the blast had forced an overall security review, and that coalition officials would meet on Friday with all diplomatic missions in Iraq to help them assess security.
He told the US network, NBC television, there were "at least two hypotheses" about the bombing - one blaming remnants of the Saddam regime, and the other claiming it was done by insurgents from neighbouring countries.
After a meeting of Iraq's governing council, member Mouwafak Al-Rabii said investigators' early reports strongly suggested that the attack was the work of Saddam loyalists.
Battle lines blurring
"There are fingerprints indicating that the act was committed by remnants of the former regime and there are early investigation reports confirming that," said Al-Rabii.
Ahmad Chalabi, another member of the governing council, warned that the lines between foreign militants and pro-Saddam guerrillas was blurring.
He had seen Iraqi intelligence reports showing that Saddam's Fedayeen militia had allied itself with the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Islam.
"Ansar are now in Baghdad and they compromis Iraqis from all sects, and non-Iraqis," he said.
World leaders condemned Tuesday's attack on the UN offices. Some nations raised fears of more attacks, and others suggested Washington end its occupation of Iraq.
In Geneva, staff hung a photo of Vieira de Mello on the locked door of his private office in the lakeside headquarters of UN high commissioner for human rights, which he heads but left on leave to serve in Iraq. Flowers and a candle were left in front of the door next to the blue UN flag.
In a fresh attack on American forces on Wednesday, a soldier was killed and another wounded after they came under small-arms fire and crashed into another vehicle while traveling in a convoy near Diwaniyah, 160km south of Baghdad.
Also, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US military convoy, killing a civilian working for the occupation force and injuring two soldiers, said Major Bryan Luke of the US army. The civilian contract worker was the second to be killed this month in Tikrit.
- AP
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