Suicide bomber blows truck up
2005-03-09 08:41
Baghdad - Two suicide bombers driving a rubbish truck set ablaze Iraq's agriculture ministry early on Wednesday, killing one security guard and wounding 28 others, eyewitnesses and medical sources said.
The attack saw a vehicle fire off rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) on a checkpoint at one entrance to the ministry while a rubbish truck rammed its way into a parking lot behind the ministry, an policeman, who requested anonymity, said.
A series of diversionary tactics were used ahead of the bombing, said eyewitness Adnan Kazem.
At around 06:30, two men in police uniforms approached a checkpoint on foot and shot dead one security guard, while a car at another entrance fired off RPGs; then at a third entry, the rubbish truck raced into the ministry's parking lot, Kazem said.
In a third eyewitness account, mechanic Haidar Hamid, 23, said: "I saw a black BMW, pull up to the checkpoint and shoot one guard. There was a change of guard at the time. The BMW killed the guard and cleared the way for the rubbish truck to enter."
The blast shot a thick black curtain of smoke over eastern Baghdad just off the capital's main commercial boulevard Saddoun street, with flames climbing up the government building and devouring cars parked around the ministry.
"Two men, dressed in police uniforms, shouted Allah Akbar (God is Great) and detonated the rubbish truck in a street behind the ministry," a security guard said, declining to give his name.
The nearby Ibn Nafiz hospital put the wounded at 28, both men and women.
Ambulance sirens screamed and dozens of police cordoned off the area as a thick curtain of black smoke clotted the street.