IRAQ:Leaders from across Iraq's sectarian divide pleaded for unity at a special session of parliament yesterday, gathering under high security to condemn a suicide bombing that tore through the building the day before.
A senior government source said authorities had intelligence that militants were planning an attack on parliament before Thursday's bombing, which killed a member of parliament and wounded two dozen more people in the building's restaurant.
An al-Qaeda-backed group, the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, claimed responsibility in an internet statement for the worst breach of security in Baghdad's most secure area, the Green Zone, which also houses government offices and embassies.
The United Nations Security Council denounced the bombing as a "heinous act of terrorism" and demanded that those using violence against the political process lay down their arms.
Three workers in the cafe had been detained, a top lawmaker from the ruling Shia Alliance bloc said. The interior ministry said it would not give details of the investigation.
"We had prior intelligence that there would be an attack on the parliament," said a government source, without giving specific details of when the information had been received or what the nature of the threat was.
Security was heavy yesterday as parliament met. Vehicles and their drivers were thoroughly searched and mobile checkpoints were set up. Police raided houses inside the sprawling compound.
The bombing came two months into a crackdown in Baghdad that US officials hope will give the government breathing space to pull Iraq back from the brink of civil war between majority Shias and once dominant minority Sunni Arabs.
Scores of lawmakers turned up for the session, including some of those wounded in the attack. Their feet crunched on broken glass as they walked to the chamber. One female MP wore a neck brace.
"Whether we are in or out of the government and the political process, we have to find a solution to national reconciliation," vice-president Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who survived an assassination attempt in February, told parliament.
Previous calls for unity by Iraq's leaders have mostly fallen on deaf ears as sectarian violence has spiralled.
"This is undeniably a difficult blow, but it should unify us to confront the evil of terrorism and it proves that terrorism is indiscriminate - Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds and Arabs were maimed in this attack," said deputy prime minister Barham Saleh, a Kurd, a message he repeated in parliament.
Iraqi officials are investigating how the suicide bomber managed to slip past checkpoints and blow himself up while parliamentarians were eating lunch.
The US military had initially said eight people were killed and more than 20 wounded in Thursday's blast. Yesterday they revised the toll down to one killed and two dozen wounded, in line with figures from Iraqi officials.
The explosives used in Thursday's attack would have had to pass through an outer checkpoint manned by US and Iraqi troops and inner checkpoints guarded by security contractors and foreign troops in the US-led coalition.
Washington and some Iraqi politicians dismissed suggestions the attack signalled a failure of the US-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital.