.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – An explosion rocked a restaurant inside the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad while lawmakers were having lunch, wounding dozens of people, a parliamentary official and a Reuters witness said.
The parliament building is located in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. Militants have rarely managed to penetrate the various checkpoints and carry out attacks, although they frequently fire mortars and rockets into the zone.
A Reuters witness said the blast took place at the cashier’s register in the cafe, which is near parliament’s main assembly hall. Parliament was in session on Thursday.
“There was a big blast, I saw the fire. There were many, many wounded. Windows were shattered,” said the witness who was lightly wounded in the arm.
Recently, the U.S. military said two suicide vests had been found inside the zone, a sprawling area that comprises many government buildings and the U.S. embassy.
Earlier, a truck bomb killed at least seven people on a key bridge in northern Baghdad, destroying most of the steel structure and sending several cars plunging into the River Tigris below, police said.
Two main sections of the Sarafiya bridge, a main artery linking east and west Baghdad, collapsed into the river. One army officer on the scene said explosive charges might have also been used to bring down a bridge that local residents said was built by the British in the early 1900s.
Among the dead were four policemen who drowned after their car toppled into the river’s muddy waters, police said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a security crackdown in the capital two months ago that has reduced death squad killings, but car and truck bombs still kill and wound scores.
The destruction of the bridge will cause major disruption in northern Baghdad. Two other bridges across the Tigris in that part of the capital are shut for security reasons while another is regarded by many residents as too dangerous to use.
“There is a conspiracy to isolate the two halves of Baghdad,” parliament Speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani, an outspoken Sunni politician, told lawmakers.
A dozen bridges cross the Tigris in Baghdad, linking the east and west of the city.
I imagine that rugs will be costing less than a dollar today. Maybe Graham can head back and pick up a great deal.
I wonder why initial reports only said that people were injured. The place must have been a real mess. I wonder what kind of photos and TV news reports we’ll get: the Green Zone is where Western journalists live, after all.
Yep, the surge sure is making Baghdad safer!
.
BBC News
Devastation caused by bombings in Baghdad"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."the “safest compound” in the country, it probably is safer in the market, eh.
Patrick Cockburn:
The bodyguard of a Sunni member of parliament is suspected of detonating a vest packed with explosives in the restaurant beside the chamber where parliament meets.
In live reports on BBC during the day, this rumor spread by security officials could not be verified by PM Maliki’s office.
What became clear there were many potential breaches in security due to malfunctioning of handscanners and x-ray equipment not working at all. Many lawmakers and the leader of Iraqi parliament have their own armed security guards. When any of these ‘high officials’ enter the parliament building, many security checks are waived. The security forces responsible for parliament are more often Spanish speaking men from Peru due to low wages (or higher profits for the company).
One of the most spoken languages in the International Zone is Spanish. Peruvian Spanish, in particular. In fact, it’s security contractors from Peru who fill many of the security jobs around the International Zone (IZ). A few words of Spanish will serve the visitor well when trying to negotiate passage through one of the countless checkpoints and guard shacks.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Ah yes, the wonders of outsourcing jobs during war so the war profiteers make even more profits.
What is the strategic implication of knocking out the bridges? Who benefits?
From what I read, one side of the bridge is predominantly Sunni, while the other side is predominantly Shiite. So my impression is that destroying this bridge was mostly symbolic, making the point that so long as the Anglo-American occupation continues, there can be no rapprochement between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites.
This would be more than symbolic then: It would make the Sunni quarters less vulnerable to “Government” or shi’ite incursion. This is important, because in Baghdad the Sunnis are really being mauled.
over at No Quarter agrees that it is strategically important, and will hinder US troop movements.
He also points out that the mode of collapse rules out the “truck bomb” story, which is either bogus or sloppy reporting.
On the face of it, it was (an expert) demolition using two charges to knock out each end of a complete span and drop it into the water.
No truck bomb: That would leave a crater, and none is in evidence.