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Embassy blast rocks Baghdad

An Iraqi spits on a portrait of Jordanian King Abdullah, taken from inside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, where a car bomb killed several people and wounded more than 50 yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

A massive car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy in the Iraqi capital yesterday morning. Rescue workers and an official at a nearby hospital said between seven and 12 people were killed and 52 wounded, many of them seriously.

Later Thursday, a massive gun battle broke out in central Baghdad, with soldiers firing into a house after they apparently came under attack. One US vehicle could be seen burning. At least at eight Humvees were at the scene. There was heavy machine gun and automatic rifle fire.

Also Thursday the US Central Command announced two soldiers were killed the night before in the Al Rashid section of Baghdad. Their translator was wounded. The military said the soldiers died in a firefight be gave no other details.

The deaths ended a four-day period in which no US forces had been killed. The deaths late Wednesday brought to 55 the number of US troops killed in combat since May 1, when US President George W. Bush declared major fighting over.

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US ground forces in Iraq, told a news conference the attack on the Jordanian Embassy was "the worst on a soft target" since Baghdad fell to American forces April 9.

Elsewhere, US forces captured four suspected leaders of the anti-US resistance in pre-dawn raids Thursday, the military said, a day after the Americans netted 18 suspected Saddam Hussein loyalists and found a huge stockpile of weapons, including missiles.

Shortly after the blast in Baghdad, young Iraqi men stormed the embassy gate and began destroying pictures of Jordanian King Abdullah II and his late father, King Hussein. They were shouting anti-Jordanian chants, but were quickly dispersed by American forces and Iraqi police.

The Jordanian consul, Karim Shushan, was among the wounded, said Ahmed al-Bakri, a doctor at the Yarmuk Hospital. Shushan suffered a fracture in the right leg and right thigh and was also treated for internal injuries, he said.

The bomb was believed to have been planted in a minibus parked outside the walled embassy compound and detonated remotely. Many cars were gutted and two bodies were seen still sitting in the vehicles.

The chassis of the minibus landed on top of three of the burned out cars. One mangled vehicle could be seen on top of a building next to the embassy.

An American tank was parked outside the embassy compound on the west edge of Baghdad. Soldiers in armored vehicles and Humvees cordoned off the area.

"I was sitting in the reception. I heard the first explosion, I ran out and then there was another explosion. Many employees were inside the embassy as well as Iraqis and Jordanians. Smoke filled the street," said Shaheed Mazloum, 50, an Iraqi guard at the embassy, who was treated at the al-Kharkh Hospital.

Mandoh Gaahi, who witnessed the explosion, said the blast shook buildings and broke windows hundreds of meters away.

A Sudanese man working as a waiter at the embassy said about 30 people inside heard the explosion and many of them suffered minor injuries from the shock of the blast. He was bleeding from the left side of his face.

One wall of the embassy compound was blown down, revealing a generator, also apparently destroyed in the blast.

In Jordan, Information Minister Nabil al-Sharif condemned the "cowardly terrorist attack."

"This criminal act will only boost our determination to continue our support for the brotherly Iraqi people," he said.

Tensions between the neighboring countries have been high because of Jordan's support for the US-led war on Iraq.

While Jordan is a major entry point into Iraq and remains a large trading partner, many Iraqis are resentful that Jordan dropped its support for Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War, and allowed American troops to use its soil as a base during the latest war.

King Abdullah II last week granted "humanitarian asylum" to two daughters of Saddam, whose husbands took refuge in Jordan but were then lured back to Iraq and killed by Saddam's regime in 1996.
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