Eight people are dead and four wounded in two explosions in the Green Zone. At least two Americans are among the casualties.:
It is believed to be the first time that insurgents have struck from within the heavily guarded compound that is home to the US and British embassies as well as Iraqi government offices.
Initial reports said that six people were killed and three wounded at the zone’s bazaar, while two were killed and an unspecified number were wounded at the Green Zone Café, but later reports amended the death toll to seven, including two Americans.
The blasts sent a large plume of thick, black smoke rising from the zone, home to about 10,000 Iraqis alongside US troops and international officials and contractors.
- One US soldier killed and two wounded by a roadside bomb in east Baghdad.
- ……an Iraqi female TV reporter was killed by gunmen in a morning drive-by shooting in Baghdad today.
Zeina Mahmoud, who worked for Kurdish-run Al-Hurriya TV, was shot by three assailants driving by in an Opel car, said officials.
- In an apparently unrelated shooting that took place less than a half mile away, a judge was shot dead just minutes earlier.
- RFE is reporting five assassinations: Iraqi police say five people have died in a series of assassinations today in Baghdad, and the town of Baquba. They include two army officers, a judge, and a woman journalist, who were shot by gunmen.
- Update: Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid wal Jihad claims responsibility for the Green Zone attack, “Two lions from the `Martyrdom-seeking Brigade` (suicide bombers), which is affiliated to the military wing of Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group, managed to enter the US embassy compound inside the Green Zone in the capital Baghdad,” said the statement posted on the Internet.
Update: AP reporting ten dead in the Green Zone bombings.
Suicide bombers today penetrated Baghdad’s heavily-secured Green Zone for the first time, setting off bombs at a market and cafe that left ten dead.
The victims were four Americans and six Iraqis.
The U-S military says the bombs were carried by hand into the fortified zone that houses American and Iraqi government headquarters.
Witnesses say they saw two men carrying backpacks sitting in a cafe full of Americans, chatting and drinking tea. They say a blast was heard after one man left — and that the second man then set off his bomb.
They say neither man was wearing a required I-D badge.