Suicide bomb hits Iraq parliament

Suicide bomb hits Iraq parliament
By Steve Negus, Iraq Correspondent
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: April 12 2007 12:10 | Last updated: April 12 2007 18:49


A suicide bomber on Thursday blew himself up inside the heavily guarded Iraqi parliament building, killing at least eight people including three legislators, and dealing a blow to the new US security plan for Baghdad.

The brazen lunchtime attack in the parliament cafeteria, inside the fortified Green Zone, cast doubt on the ability of even the most stringent security measures to provide a safe, neutral space in the Iraqi capital for politicians to meet.

The building which houses parliament is more accessible to the public, and not as secure as prime ministerial offices or the homes of various political leaders. But the attack is probably the most serious breach of security to date in the Green Zone, the swathe of the city guarded by the US and allied militaries, private security contractors and Iraqi troops.

Parliamentary sources have so far identified three legislators killed in the blast – two from the two main Sunni blocs and one from the Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance.

Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, condemned an attack she said was perpetrated by those wishing to stop Iraqis from “having a future that would be based on democracy and stability”.

She insisted the Baghdad security plan – launched earlier this year and seen as a last-ditch American effort to control the city’s sectarian violence – was still in its early stages. “We have said there will be good days and bad days,” she said.

The Green Zone is regularly hit by mortars fired from the outside, usually ineffectively. Security measures make bomb attacks inside comparatively rare, although six people were killed in October 2004 in an attack on a cafe.

Most Iraqis who wish to enter it must pass through multiple checkpoints run by troops of the US-led coalition, private security firms and Iraqi security forces, and include body-scanners, pat-downs and sniffer dogs.

Legislators themselves, however, can circumvent some of the checkpoints and some Shia have accused Sunni parliamentarians of co-operating with insurgents.

Thursday’s violence could deter deputies from coming to Iraq’s already sparsely- attended parliamentary sessions and delay the implementation of a government legislative platform aimed at national reconciliation.

In other violence, at least 10 people were killed when insurgents managed to partially destroy a major bridge across the Tigris with a car bomb. The death toll may rise from cars which plummeted into the river from the broken structure.

The al-Sarafiya bridge, one of nine major spans across the Tigris, links a predominantly Sunni neighbourhood in north-east Baghdad and a Shia district across the river.

The blast marks one of the first times that insurgents have been able to seriously damage part of the country’s transport infrastructure.