BAGHDAD -- A suicide driver set off a truck bomb at the gates of the U.S.-led coalition headquarters yesterday, killing 20 people and wounding 63 in the deadliest attack here since Saddam Hussein's capture last month. The bombing, which occurred during rush hour, came on the eve of a meeting between U.S. administrator Paul Bremer and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to discuss Iraq's future, including whether Iraq is safe enough for the UN to return.
Annan withdrew all international UN staff from Iraq after two bombings at UN headquarters and a spate of attacks on humanitarian targets.
The bombing may have been a signal to the UN to stay out of Iraq and a warning to Iraqis against co-operating with occupation forces.
Witnesses said that at about 8 a.m., the driver of what the U.S. military described as a white pickup truck tried to bypass a line of Iraqi workers and a crowd of U.S. military vehicles, coming as close as possible to the entrance American troops call Assassins' Gate.
Late yesterday, the U.S. command said "about 20" people were killed and 63 wounded. Officials said they were unable to give a more precise death toll because of the condition of some of the bodies dismembered in the blast.
The force of the blast, from a bomb containing 450 kilograms of explosive, rattled windows more than two kilometres away.
The attack was the latest inside the U.S.-controlled Green Zone along the west bank of the Tigris River. Insurgents have targeted the area in the past with mortar and rocket fire, but never before with a vehicle bomb.
Most victims were Iraqis, including some waiting in traffic in their cars or lined up for security checks before going to work or attending other business inside the high-walled coalition compound, housed in what was once Saddam's Republican Palace.
"Once again, it is innocent Iraqis who have been murdered by these terrorists in a senseless act of violence," Bremer said in a statement. "Our determination to work for a stable and democratic future for this country is undiminished."
The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council blamed the "heinous crime" on terrorists allied with Saddam.
"This is yet another stigma on the foreheads of the mass grave regime and its terrorist allies inside and outside (the country), who have no value for sacred things or human lives," the council said in a statement.
The attack occurred one day before Bremer, Annan and U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials meet in New York to discuss a U.S. plan to hand over power to a provisional Iraqi government by June 30, and the role, if any, the UN will play in the immediate future of Iraq.
