A suicide bomber yesterday detonated a vehicle filled with half a tonne of explosives outside the main US headquarters in Baghdad, killing 20 people and wounding at least 60. Jack Fairweather reports from Baghdad
The bombing will cast a shadow over talks in New York today between the US, the United Nations and Iraq's Governing Council over the future of Iraq. The US administrator in Iraq, Mr Paul Bremer, is to ask the UN to return to Baghdad and play a role in the formation of an interim government.
However, the bombing will remind the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, of the dangers his staff will face working in Iraq, in light of the bomb attack last August when 23 people were killed at UN headquarters in Baghdad.
Yesterday's explosion happened at around 8 a.m. as employees queued outside Assassin's Gate, a heavily fortified entrance to one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces which now serves as US headquarters.
Most of those killed were Iraqi civilians waiting to meet US officials inside the compound. Two American civilian contractors were among the dead. It is the deadliest attack since the suicide bombing of an Italian military police compound in November, which killed 28 people, including 19 Italians.
Witnesses described how the blast occurred when a white pick-up truck broke away from a line of cars waiting to be searched.
US troops guarding the gate took cover when the truck drove towards the security cordon of crash barriers and barbed wire before detonating.
"I saw the sky became red with fire," said Mr Jassim Mohammed, who was passing by in a taxi. "The next second the force of the explosion had me out through the passenger door window."
Another witness said: "There were bodies of dead people scattered in all directions."
The blast left the wreckage of burning cars, scattered body parts, and a pall of smoke over the city.
The US compound itself - a regular target for grenade and mortar attacks - was not damaged.
A US military spokesman said: "The blast occurred at the last point a vehicle could get to without being stopped. The barriers absorbed most of the blast and saved a lot of lives."
In October, bombers struck four times in Baghdad, killing at least 35 people and wounding 230, near a Red Cross building and three police stations. The Christmas period had been relatively calm in the wake of Saddam's arrest, although US military commanders have warned that violence against coalition forces is likely to continue.
On Saturday, a bomb attack on a patrol north of Baghdad took the number of American troops killed since the war began in Iraq in March last year to 500.
Mr Bremer responded to the attack by saying terrorists would "not succeed" in disrupting the reconstruction of the country.