The Hindu : International : Rocket slams into U.S. headquarters

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 14, 2004

International

International

Rocket slams into U.S. headquarters

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA, JUNE 13. Sustaining the surge in recent attacks, Iraqi guerillas today fired a rocket into the Republican Palace, the headquarters of the U.S.-led Coalition administration in Iraq, while a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives outside an American military camp near Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding 13.

While guerillas have earlier fired rockets and mortars inside Baghdad's high security "green zone", across the Tigris river, this was the first occasion when the Republican Palace of the former President, Saddam Hussein, had received a direct hit. U.S. officials underplayed the incident saying that the attack had caused only minor damage to the building. Persisting with their strategy of derailing the interim Iraqi administration, gunmen today killed Kamal al-Jarah, an Education Ministry official in charge of establishing contacts with foreign countries and the United Nations. This was the second assassination of a senior Government figure, and took place a day after Bassam Qubba, interim Deputy Foreign Minister was shot dead.

Mr. Al-Jarah was killed outside his home in the capital's Ghazaliya district, a neighbourhood dominated by Sunnis. Earlier during the day, a car bomb exploded outside a base of the U.S. First Cavalry Division. Police officials on the spot said the blast took place after two police cars tried to stop the suicide bomber. Apart from the police cars, eight civilian vehicles were badly damaged.

The violence sweeping across Iraq saw on Saturday, an assassination attempt on a senior police official in Baquba, 64 km northeast of Baghdad. Brig. Majeed Almani Mahal, the targeted official, was recovering in hospital, officials were quoted as saying.

The chief of Iraq's border police, Maj. Gen. Hussein Mustafa Abdul-Kareem, was also lightly wounded on the same day when gunmen fired on his convoy in Baghdad.

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