Car Bomb Kills 20 Outside Main U.S. Base in Baghdad

Sun January 18, 2004 06:11 AM ET

By Raju Gopalakrishnan

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew up a car laden with half a ton of explosives outside the main U.S. headquarters in Baghdad on Sunday morning, killing at least 20 people and wounding about 60 as they waited to enter the base.

The attack in the heart of the Iraqi capital came a day before a key meeting in New York between the United Nations, Iraq's Governing Council and U.S. and British officials on the political future of the country.

The bomb exploded right outside the main entrance to the "Green Zone," formerly Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace complex in Baghdad and now the top-security civilian and military headquarters of the U.S.-led administration.

Colonel Ralph Baker, a U.S. military spokesman, said a pickup truck packed with 1,000 lb (454 kg) of explosives was detonated outside the gate, which the Americans call the Assassins Gate.

Cars were on fire in the street after the blast and victims lay on the ground in pools of blood. A stream of ambulances ferried away the wounded through thick early-morning mist.

U.S. Army spokesman Captain Jason Beck said 20 dead and 29 wounded were brought to a U.S. hospital. Two of the dead were U.S. Department of Defense employees but he did not immediately know their nationalities.

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