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Suicide attacker strikes us headquarters Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-10-Iraq-explosion_x.htmhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-10-Iraq-explosion_x.htm
Posted 9/10/2003 5:51 AM Updated 9/10/2003 12:33 PM
Suicide attacker strikes U.S. headquarters
IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — A suicide car bomber struck the U.S. intelligence headquarters here, killing three Iraqis, including two children, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The U.S. military in Baghdad said the bombing wounded four "Defense Human Intelligence Service" officers and a Kurdish peshmerga guard at the building.
A Kurdish security official said on condition of anonymity that three of the wounded Americans suffered serious abdominal injuries from flying glass and were flown by helicopter to a U.S. military hospital.
Maj. James Bullion, civil affairs executive officer of the 404th Civil Affairs Battalion, Special Operations, said one of the four was in critical condition and the other three were seriously hurt. He said two children were killed.
Bullion, speaking at his office three miles outside Irbil, said the blast was felt there. The Americans were collecting intelligence in the region and the explosion "would have no impact on our operations," he said.
According to the Kurdish official, a 12-year-old Iraqi boy was among those killed and 41 Iraqis were wounded, including children from nearby houses and Iraqi Kurdish guards.
The Kurdish official said the attack was the work of al-Qaeda. He gave no reason for that assessment, but said he was certain Osama bin Laden's organization was behind the attack.
The Ansar al-Islam terrorist organization, with suspected ties to al-Qaeda, formerly was based near Sulaymaniyah, about 60 miles southeast of Irbil and near the Iranian border.
Ansar headquarters was bombed by American jets during the war and was captured by a joint U.S.-Kurdish force. Surviving members of the group were believed to have fled to Iran, but they now are believed to have returned to Iraq.
The Tuesday night blast, which came less than two days before the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, was the fifth such bombing in Iraq in five weeks.
In west Baghdad, a U.S. soldier from the 1st Armored Division was killed Wednesday trying to detonate a roadside bomb, the military said.
The victim was part of an explosive ordnance detonating team that tried to blow up the bomb by shooting it with a .50-caliber machine gun on a Bradley fighting vehicle. The bomb did not explode when fired at, but blew up as the soldier went to inspect it.
The soldier's death was the second in as many days among American forces after an eight-day stretch when no Americans were reported to have died.
About 5 p.m. Tuesday, a soldier was killed and one was wounded when a homemade bomb exploded near a military vehicle on a supply route northeast of the capital, the U.S. Central Command said Wednesday.
Those soldiers were from the U.S. Army's 3rd Corp Support Command, the military said. The wounded soldier was evacuated to a field hospital.
A witness to the Irbil attack, 31-year-old teacher Jafar Marouf, was visiting a friend Tuesday night on the quiet residential street when he saw a white, four-wheel-drive vehicle approach quickly and then explode with the driver inside. Marouf, who was slightly injured, spoke with the AP in the hospital.
U.S. soldiers at the scene Wednesday refused to give any information. Dozens of people who appeared to be Americans wearing civilian clothes and flak jackets were coming and going from the scene.
U.S. soldiers flew to the site by helicopter and guarded the area with local Iraqi Kurdish fighters.
The Kurdish security official said U.S. intelligence officers worked in the bombed building, with some top officers also sleeping there. Others had quarters in two villas about 500 yards down the street.
"It was a blasphemy to put their base in a civilian neighborhood," said Najib Abdullah, 50, manager of a nearby gas station.
He said he was in his office counting the days proceeds when the blast occurred.
"The whole neighborhood shook. Chunks of concrete were falling from the sky," he said.
The wounded included children from nearby houses and Iraqi Kurdish guards. Irbil is the largest city in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.
Television pictures showed Kurdish women wailing and men running in panic with a burning car behind them. A Kurdish man could be seen carrying a toddler.
The videotape also showed the vehicle that apparently carried the bomb. It was intact but badly burned.
Authorities in Irbil, about 200 miles north of Baghdad, called to residents over loudspeakers to donate blood for the wounded, CNN-Turk television said Tuesday night.
Northern Iraq has been the most stable part of the country since Saddam Hussein's ouster.
For the third time in two weeks, anti-tank rockets were fired at, but missed, the headquarters of Denmark's 400-man military contingent in southern Iraq, the Danish military said Wednesday.
No one was injured in the failed attack, Denmark's Army Operational Command said.
Between three and four rockets were believed to have been fired from a soccer stadium yards away from the Danish headquarters in Al Qurnah, just north of Basra, early Wednesday morning.
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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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