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 Bomb explodes outside Baghdad police headquarters
 
International Herald Tribune
September 02, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq A car bomb exploded near the police headquarters in Baghdad Tuesday, wounding many bystanders, a day after roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers. In the holy city of Najaf, the son of a slain religious leader warned Iraq was entering a dangerous new period.
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Witnesses said many people were wounded in the Baghdad blast, one seriously, but Iraqi police Maj. Bassal al-Ani told The Associated Press there were no fatalities. There was little damage to the police building.
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Huge plumes of black smoke rose above the scene and U.S. military police and Iraqi police cordoned off the area.
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One man, who had a shrapnel wound in his left arm, said he saw a hand laying in the road.
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‘‘There was debris blown everywhere,’’ said Raad Majid, 27, whose arm was bandaged. He said he was about 30 yards away when the blast occurred.
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Acting Baghdad police chief Hassan al-Obeidi has offices in the headquarters building and is closely associated with the U.S.-led occupation authority, especially former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who put al-Obeidi in his position.
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Kerik has been in Iraq to rebuild the country’s police force.
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Al-Obeidi was shot in the leg at the end of July during a weapons raid in downtown Baghdad. The day after the raid, he moved a bed into his office so he could continue to command the police force.
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The police headquarters is not far from the Iraqi Interior Ministry building.
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On Monday, two soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 2nd Battalion of the 20th Military Police Brigade were killed when a bomb went off beside their convoy in southern Iraq. Another soldier was wounded. The U.S. military provided no other details. In all, 282 U.S. soldiers have died in the Iraq war, 147 of that number since the end of heavy fighting.
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On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of mourners streamed into the holy city of Najaf for the funeral of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, a moderate cleric killed in a bombing on Friday.
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Guards in white robes and dark uniforms stood every few yards along the roof of Najaf’s golden, domed Imam Ali shrine. Black banners of mourning were draped across the mosque.
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The shrine on Friday became the site of the country’s bloodiest attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein. There are varying accounts of how many other people died, ranging from more than 80 to more than 120.
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‘‘My believing brothers, the sons of Iraq, our injured Iraq is facing great and dangerous challenges in which one requires strength,’’ the ayatollah’s son, Mohammed Hussein Mohammed Saeed Al-Hakim said as the funeral procession made one of its final stops before Najaf in the town of Hilla.
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‘‘I call on you to hold on to this unity and help each other ... (through this) new period,’’ he said.
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The funeral procession started in Baghdad on Sunday and wove its way through Hilla and the second holiest city of Karbala before nearing Najaf for the funeral ceremony.
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Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist group linked to al-Qaida, has denied any role in the Najaf bombing, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite television station reported.
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A presenter only paraphrased the denial, which was attributed to the group’s spiritual leader, Mullah Krekar. Krekar did not appear on the screen and was not directly quoted.
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The report further muddled the issue of who could have perpetrated the attack.
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The CIA said Monday it was examining a audiotape recording in which a man claiming to be Saddam denied he was behind the Najaf bombing. Al-Hakim was a longtime opponent of Saddam who returned from exile after the U.S. invasion.
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The voice on the tape appeared to be that of Saddam and employed his well-known rhetorical flourishes.
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‘‘Many of you may have heard the snakes hissing, the servants of the invaders, occupiers, infidels, and how they have managed to accuse the followers of Saddam Hussein of responsibility for the attack on al-Hakim without any evidence,’’ said the tape, broadcast by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite television station and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp.
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‘‘They rushed to accuse before investigating,’’ the voice said.
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While denying a role in the Najaf bombing, the voice made no mention of the Jordanian Embassy bombing on Aug. 7 or the U.N. headquarters attack 12 days later, which investigators suspect may have also been committed by Saddam followers.
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Some Iraqi police officials leading the investigation of the bombing have said they believe al-Qaida linked Islamic militants were behind the Najaf attack — not Saddam loyalists. The FBI said it would help investigate the bombing after receiving a request from local officials.
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Iraq’s 25-member Governing Council on Monday announced a Cabinet that mirrored exactly the council’s ethnic and religious breakdown with 13 Shiites, five Sunni Arabs, five Kurds (also Sunnis), one ethnic Turk and an Assyrian Christian.
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The Information Ministry, which became famous for its distorted accounts of the war, has been abolished.
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L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq, has said an election for a new government could take place as early as the end of 2004 after the adoption of a new constitution.

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