Dozens killed in Baghdad attacks
· Ambulance rams Red Cross
· Five police stations targeted
· Straw's 'shock and outrage' at attack
Monday October 27, 2003
Iraqi police and US soldiers arrive on the scene of a bombing outside the International Red Cross building in Baghdad. Photograph: Anja Niedringhaus/AP
Car bombers attacked the international Red Cross headquarters and four police stations across Baghdad today, killing around 40 people.
A suicide bomber drove an ambulance packed with explosives into security barriers outside the Red Cross at around 8.30am local time (0530 GMT), killing 12 people, the aid agency said.
Then in police station bombings through the morning, 27 people, mostly Iraqis and one US solider, were killed, Iraqi police said.
The capital has now seen the worst two day of violence since the war was declared over in April and the sound of sirens reverberated through the streets this morning as emergency vehicles criss-crossed the city.
The bombings came during a morning of apparently choreographed attacks by Iraqi resistance guerrillas that appears to have been timed to coincide with the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Witnesses of the Red Cross bombing said the vehicle stopped some 20 metres (60 feet) in front of the headquarters. One Red Cross worker said: "The ambulance stopped in front of the line of barrels we have had in front to protect the building and then it exploded."
Despite the protection of the barrels, oil drums filled with sand, the blast blew down a 40-foot (12-metre) section of the front wall in front of the three-storey building. It also demolished a dozen cars parked nearby and appeared to break a water main, flooding the streets.
"We feel helpless when see this," a distraught Iraqi doctor said at the devastated offices.
Other Iraqis, meanwhile, were reported to have been killed at the hands of Americans. In Fallujah, 65km (40 miles) west of Baghdad, witnesses said US troops opened fire indiscriminately, killing at least four Iraqi civilians, after a roadside bomb exploded as a US military convoy passed. The US command did not immediately confirm the incident or any US casualties.
Speaking in Brussels ahead of an EU meeting, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, reacted with "shock and outrage" to the Red Cross attack. He said: "The fact that terrorists have yet again targeted not US or UK troops but an international organisation ... shows the depth of depravity to which they stoop."
Mr Straw called the security situation in Baghdad "unsatisfactory" but said "overall the situation across Iraq is getting better." He said: "I will just make this clear: We will not be deterred by this kind of outrage."
Tony Blair's official spokesman said: "The prime minister utterly condemns these evil and wicked attacks.
"The terrorists and criminals responsible for them are obviously the enemies of the Iraqi people inasmuch as they are deliberately targeting those organisations who are helping to build towards a free and stable Iraq. But that work will continue."
Mr Blair's spokesman also said the premier would be sending a message today to Britain's special representative in Iraq Sir Jeremy Greenstock "setting out his admiration for the professionalism and courage of those British officials who are working inside Iraq".
The terror attacks came hours after clashes in the Baghdad area killed three US soldiers overnight, and a day after an audacious rocket salvo attack on the Rashid hotel in central Baghdad which narrowly missed Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, who had been staying there. A US colonel was killed and 18 people wounded in that attack.
The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed at its headquarters in Geneva that 12 people were killed, including two of its Iraqi employees. Baghdad ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani said she believed the employees were security guards.
Sir Nicholas Young, the chief executive of the British Red Cross, said: "[We are] a neutral, independent humanitarian organisation which serves to help those most in need wherever they are in the world, and that we have been deliberately targeted in this way is a great shock to us."
However, he said that "despite today's attack we remain committed to helping the Iraqi people". The provision of safe drinking water, visiting detainees and reuniting separated families, are part of the agency's work, he said.
Inside, the Red Cross building was said to be heavily damaged and littered with shattered glass, broken doors, hinges and toppled book cases.
American troops and Iraqi police converged on the neighbourhood and cordoned off the area following that attack which left a crater five metres across. The crater filled had filled with water as firefighters put out the blaze in the vehicle.
Despite the carnage, US Brigadier General Mark Hertling praised Iraqi police for stopping the bomber getting closer to their target. But the explosions outside police stations left streetscapes of broken, bloody bodies and twisted, burning automobiles.
The 27 reported fatalities at four police stations included 15 Iraqis at the ad-Doura station in southern Baghdad. The al-Khadra police station in northeast Baghdad was also hit.
At a fifth police station in central Baghdad, officers stopped a suicide bomber before he could detonate his Land Cruiser. "He was shouting, 'Death to the Iraqi police! You're collaborators!"' said police Sgt Ahmed Abdel Sattar.
Brig Gen Hertling said he believed the attacks may have been timed to coincide with Ramadan to increase the sense of unease among the 5 million population of Baghdad. During Ramadan Muslims abstain from food, drink, cigarettes and sex during daylight hours, and religious feelings can run high.
Dr Jalal F Massa, 53, a cardiologist whose daughter was slightly injured in the Red Cross blast, said the US occupation had failed to bring security to the city. "For us, as Iraqi people, who have suffered so much, we feel helpless when we see this," he said. "It [the occupation] has not been a success. We were much better off in the 1950s when we had little oil. I don't know what price we have to pay."
Since the US president, George Bush, announced the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1, 112 US soldiers and 11 British soldiers have been confirmed killed in action.
