M A I N   N E W S

Series of explosions rock Baghdad, 37 dead

Baghdad, October 27
Car bombers struck the International Red Cross headquarters and four police stations across Baghdad today, killing 37 persons in a spree of destruction that terrorised the Iraqi capital on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramzan, the police and the U.S. military reported.

At least 10 persons were killed at the International Red Cross headquarters and 27 elsewhere, most of them Iraqis, including at least one U.S. soldier, the officials said.

The bombings came hours after clashes in the Baghdad area claimed lives of three US soldiers overnight, and a day after insurgents devastated a hotel full of US officials with a rocket barrage killing a US colonel and wounding 18 others.

At the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Central Baghdad, witnesses said a suicide bomber drove an explosive-packed vehicle, apparently an ambulance, right up to security barriers outside the building and detonated it, blowing up the front wall of the buildings devastating the interior and scattering shrapnel and debris over a wide area.

Through the morning, four other vehicles exploded at police stations here.

The Iraqi police reported some 27 persons were killed at police stations, including 15 Iraqis at the ad-Doura station in southern Baghdad. A US soldier was among them, said Lieut Sarmad al-Hakim, an ad-Doura officer.

Teams of the US military police have been stationed at Baghdad police stations in recent months.

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 a police Sergeant. At least 10 Iraqis were killed and 10 wounded at the Red Cross bombing. Dr Allawi Attiyah of the Ibn al-Nafeez hospital also put the toll at 10, and said 12 were injured. Nada Doumani, Baghdad spokeswoman for the ICRC, said she believed one or two of Red Cross Iraqi guards were killed.

An American official said he believed the attacks might have been timed with the start of Ramzan in order to heighten tension during the fasting month, when Muslims abstain from food and drink during daylight hours and religious feelings run high.

Ms Doumani said more than 100 workers would normally be at the ICRC after 9 am, but staffers said only about one-quarter that number were present at the time of blast.

The Red Cross and other international aid bodies had reduced their Baghdad staff after the car bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on August 19, in which 23 persons died.

GENEVA: The Inter-national Committee of the Red Cross on Monday called the bombing at its Baghdad headquarters, a “deliberate” attack.

“We are deeply shocked...because it is an attack against the ICRC...and that means, of course, a deliberate attack against our protective emblem and against our work,’’ chief spokeswoman Antonella Notari said. — AP, Reuters