Suicide bomber penetrates Green Zone - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Suicide bomber penetrates Green Zone

BAGHDAD — A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone on Thursday, killing at least eight people, the American military said.

Iraqi officials said the bomber struck the cafeteria while several lawmakers were eating lunch. State television said at least 30 people were wounded.

The blast came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.

After the parliament blast, security guards sealed the building and no one — including lawmakers — was allowed to enter or leave.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said witness accounts indicated a suicide attack.

“We don’t know at this point who it was. We do know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominantly by al-Qaida,” he said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said no Americans were hurt in the blast.

Mohammed Abu Bakr, who heads the legislature’s media department, said he saw a suicide bomber’s body amid a ghastly scene at the restaurant.

“I saw two legs in the middle of the cafeteria and none of those killed or wounded lost their legs — which means they must be the legs of the suicide attacker,” he said.

Several other lawmakers said they too saw the disembodied legs, believed to be those of the bomber.

Earlier in the day, security officials used dogs to check people entering the building in a rare precaution — apparently concerned that an attack might take place.

But a security scanner that checks pedestrians at the entrance to the Green Zone near the parliament building was not working Thursday, Abu Bakr said. People were searched only by hand and had to pass through metal detectors, he said.

The bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can penetrate even the most secure locations. Masses of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are on the streets in the ninth week of a security crackdown in the capital and security measures inside the Green Zone have been significantly hardened.

Khalaf al-Ilyan, one of the three leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, which holds 44 seats, said the attack was “aimed at everyone — all parties — our parliament in general being a symbol and a representative of all segments of Iraqi society.”

Al-Ilyan, who is in Jordan recovering from knee surgery, said the blast also “underlines the failure of the government’s security plan.”

“The plan is 100 percent a failure. It’s a complete flop. The explosion means that instability and lack of security has reached the Green Zone, which the government boasts is heavily fortified,” he said.

In Washington, the White House condemned the bombing.

“This attack demonstrates that the terrorists and extremists will go to great lengths to undermine the Iraqi government, a government that is working to bring peace and stability for the people of Iraq, as opposed to the death and destruction that the terrorists offer,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “The United States and Iraq cannot and will not let them succeed.”

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Republican presidential candidate John McCain said the attack showed terrorists were determined to destroy the Iraqi people’s dreams of democracy but did not mean the security operation had failed.

“We know that there is a security problem in Baghdad,” Rice told reporters at the State Department where she met with McCain. “This is still early in the process and I don’t think anyone expected that there wouldn’t be counter-efforts by terrorists to undermine the security presence.”

McCain said the bombing could not take away from initial, small successes from the surge.

“It makes all of us sad for these public servants who have been injured or killed, but I don’t think you can change the larger picture [that] we are achieving some small successes,” he said.