IRAQ: Eleven people were killed and 50 wounded when a massive bomb exploded in a parked minibus at 10.30 a.m. outside the Jordanian embassy in the prosperous Mansur diplomatic quarter, writes Michael Jansen in Baghdad
Meanwhile, repeated explosions and small arms fire rocked the Iraqi capital yesterday.
Elsewhere in the capital, US troops exchanged fire withgunmen in nearby buildings after a blast set a Humvee vehicle ablaze. At least one Iraqi bystander was killed as US soldiers sprayed the area with gunfire.
The army said that in an earlier gun battle in central Baghdad on Wednesday night, gunmen killed two American soldiers and wounded another soldier, along with an Iraqi interpreter.
All UN operations in the city have been cancelled for today as UN personnel were told to stay at home.
Outside the embassy most of the fatalities and injuries were Iraqi guards, police, staff and passers-by in the street. A portion of the embassy wall was blown in, windows in the neighbourhood were shattered and the immediate vicinity was blackened by the firey blast.
Body parts were strewn across the street and vehicles caught by the explosion were reduced to twisted metal skeletons. The doors of shops five kilometres away from the explosion site were thrown open by the shock waves.
The motive for the attack remains a mystery. There is speculation that it could have been prompted by the anti-Jordanian sentiments of two groups.
The first is a group of opponents of ousted president Saddam Hussein who are embittered by the support he received for many years from Jordan. Before the war, Jordan was one of Iraq's major trading partners and received half of its oil for free and half at a discount from Saddam's regime.
Last week, Saddam's eldest daughters, Raghd and Rana, and nine of their children, were given sanctuary in the Hashemite Kingdom on compassionate grounds.
The second group could be supporters of Saddam who are angered by Jordan's tentative, covert alignment with the US and Britain during the spring offensive and thereafter. Several thousand US, British and Australian special forces based in the kingdom crossed into the western desert during the first week of the war and captured two strategic airbases built during the period of British rule, 1920-58.
Since 1991 Jordan has been a haven for opponents of Saddam, in spite of its rapprochement with the Baathist former regime.
Four non-Iraqi witnesses to the Karada attack told The Irish Times that they had been in separate shops when a grenade was fired at one of the military vehicles that routinely patrol the area.
The witnesses, engaged in specialist humanitarian work in Iraq, said the troops responded on the spot with heavy fire in the direction from which the grenade had originated.
US troops also came under fire from a sniper on a roof overlooking the site, indicating that the operation had been carefully planned.
The witnesses said an Iraqi family took them into their home and served them tea while they watched what was happening outside on CNN until the all-clear was broadcast. One witness, who has a military background, said that after the grenade exploded the most serious danger came from cross-fire between US troops shocked and shaken by the attack.
While the witnesses were relating their experience, there was the sound of another large explosion not far from the well-protected international conference centre where a number of US offices are based.
An authoritative source said that the Jordanian embassy was shifting from Mansur to the conference centre, where a heavy deployment of US troops will afford the kingdom's diplomats protection.
The Karada incident took place as Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez, commander of occupation forces in Iraq, was giving a press briefing dealing with the embassy bombing.
Pressed by journalists, he attempted to play down the significance of the strike on the Jordanian embassy. While this was the first major attack on a diplomatic mission in the Iraqi capital, he said that "similar explosive devices had been used before" outside Baghdad. He failed to mention an attack on the Italian ambassador's residence in the Suleiq district on July 30th, which inflicted no injuries and little damage.
The general confirmed reports that two US troops manning a checkpoint in the Rashid district were killed late on Wednesday night.
This and the Karada incident - if the two Karada fatalities are confirmed - raise the toll of US military deaths from hostile action to 58 since the end of the main military campaign was declared by President Bush on May 1st.
Gen Sanchez reiterated his assessment that the occupation forces were fighting a "low-intensity conflict" here. This seems to be escalating and becoming more deadly on a daily basis.