AFP – A suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament canteen in Baghdad’s Green Zone Thursday, killing three people in a major breach of security at the country’s most heavily guarded site.
The bombing, which killed at least two lawmakers and wounded about 20 people including MPs, occurred despite a massive US-Iraqi security crackdown launched in the capital two months ago, and was swiftly condemned in Washington.
The attack — a rare strike inside the heavily-fortified Green Zone — came just hours after an attack on a Baghdad bridge that left 10 people dead.
"A suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt and carrying a briefcase entered the cafeteria. Security was very tight because parliament was meeting," a security official said.
"The flesh of the suicide bomber was scattered across the cafeteria. There was blood everywhere on the floor," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity from the scene of the attack.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned the attack as "criminal cowardly act" and the parliament speaker announced a special session would be held on Friday to condemn "terrorism."
The security official named one of the dead MPs as Mohammed Awad, a member of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab party which has 11 seats in the 275-member parliament.
The second killed was a member of the Kurdish Alliance, the second biggest grouping in parliament after the main Shiite Muslim alliance, the official said, adding that the third victim was a parliamentary employee.
About seven hours earlier, a suicide bomber blew up a truck on a major bridge across the Tigris River in Baghdad, killing 10 people and sending cars plunging from the wrecked structure into the waters below.
Access to the Green Zone — home to the Iraqi government and foreign embassies — is restricted to visitors carrying picture identity cards and required to pass through multiple checkpoints and metal dectectors.
Insurgents have, however, managed to fire projectiles such as rockets and mortar rounds into the compound from outside its heavily guarded walls.
In October 2004, at least seven people were killed including two American civilians in bombings in the zone claimed by the then leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was slain in June last year.
US national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe condemned Thursday’s bombing as an "attack on the democratically elected government of Iraq."
Asked whether it called into question the effectiveness of the US-led security plan, Johndroe replied: "No, I think it shows the determination of the terrorists and and extremists.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett of Britain, the closest US ally in Iraq, condemned the blast as the product of "twisted minds" seeking to disrupt the country’s budding democracy.
Although American and Iraqi officials have reported a reduction in execution-style killings since launching a huge security crackdown in Baghdad two months ago, they have admitted car bombings remain a curse.
Another 10 people were killed and 26 wounded in Thursday’s truck bombing on Al-Sarafiyah Bridge, one of the oldest in the Iraqi capital, which collapsed under the force of the blast, a security official said.
River police raced to the scene on patrol boats and divers donned oxygen cylinders to search the murky waters for survivors after officials said four cars tumbled off the bridge.
A witness, who gave his name only as Jawad, told an AFP photographer he was on the bridge trying to fix a puncture to his vehicle loaded with cooking gas when he saw a man park a truck nearby and run off.
On Wednesday, US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell admitted that the overall Iraqi death toll had risen by 10 percent between February and March.
According to Iraqi security officials, more than 2,000 Iraqis were killed in March alone, 15 percent more than in February.
And in a sign that the American military is straining to meet its commitments, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said soldiers will see their tours of duty in Iraq extended by three months.
Gates acknowledged that US forces are stretched with the foreign deployments, but said the new measure allows the army to maintain the surge in Iraq "probably at least" until April 2008.
On Wednesday, the US military also charged that Shiite Iran was supporting Sunni extremist groups known to trigger high-profile vehicle bombs against civilians and security forces.
Washington has regularly charged that Shiite Iran was funding and training Iraq’s Shiite militias but Wednesday’s accusation that the former foe of Iraq was also aiding Sunni groups was a first.