Suicide bomb strikes UN HQ in Baghdad - 20 killed including top UN envoy

BAGHDAD, Iraq: A cement truck packed with explosives detonated outside the offices of the top UN envoy in Iraq, killing him and 19 other people and devastating the UN headquarters here in an unprecedented suicide attack against the world body. At least 100 others were injured.

The bombing blasted a two-metre-deep (6-foot) crater in the ground, shredded the facade of the Canal Hotel housing UN offices and stunned an organisation that had been welcomed by many Iraqis in contrast to the US-led occupation forces.  Except for a new concrete wall built recently, UN officials at the headquarters refused the sort of heavy security that the US military has put up around some sensitive civilian sites — because the UN “did not want a large American presence outside,” said Salim Lone, the UN spokesman in the Iraqi capital. Emergency workers pulled bloodied survivors from the rubble and lined up the dead in body bags. Survivors reported other victims still buried.  The 4.30 pm (1230 GMT) blast brought down the office of the top UN envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, where he was meeting with other UN officials. Vieira de Mello — a 55-year-old veteran diplomat serving in what one UN spokesman called the world body’s toughest assignment — was wounded and trapped in the rubble, and workers gave him water as they tried to extricate him. Hours later, the United Nations announced his death. “Those who killed him have committed a crime, not only against the United Nations but against Iraq itself,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement, calling the Brazilian diplomat “an outstanding servant of humanity.”

UN officials vowed to continue their mission in Iraq. But the blast, the shock at being targetted and the death of a rising star beloved in the organisation struck deep. All the national flags that ring the UN headquarters’ entrance in New York were removed from their poles, and the blue-and-white UN flag was lowered to half staff. Staffers, tears in their eyes, gathered in hallways and watched in shock as televisions reported on his death. UN and US officials called the bombing a “terrorist attack,” but there was no immediate claim of responsibility. The bombing came nearly two weeks after a car exploded and killed 19 people at the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad and after a string of dramatic attacks on oil and water pipelines in Iraq. Like the remote-controlled explosion at the Jordan Embassy, the suicide bombing on the UN headquarters focused on a high-profile target with many civilians inside and resembled attacks blamed on Islamic militants elsewhere in the world. It was far more sophisticated than the guerrilla attacks that have plagued US forces, featuring hit-and-run shootings carried out by small bands or remote control roadside bombs.

As FBI agents joined the investigation, Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who is rebuilding the Iraqi police force, told reporters that evidence suggested the attack was a suicide bombing. But he said it was “much too early” to say if Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network was behind the attack. “We don’t have that kind of evidence yet.” A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in Baghdad that the truck did not breach the wall that had been erected around the hotel within the past month. He said the truck was parked on an access road just outside the compound.  US President George W. Bush, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, called the bombers “enemies of the civilized world.” “These killers will not determine the future of Iraq,” Bush said. “Every sign of progress in Iraq adds to the desperation of the terrorists and the remnants of Saddam’s brutal regime.”