Car bomb blows up inside Baghdad Green Zone, 3 dead

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A suicide car bomber drove into
Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone complex with a convoy of
other vehicles on Tuesday and blew up, killing three people and
wounding six, Iraqi police said.

The vehicle entered the Green Zone, which houses the U.S.
and British embassies and the Iraqi government, by an entrance
used by Iraqi employees, journalists and others to enter the
complex.

Police said the car exploded as it was being searched at a
checkpoint inside the zone. The attack came on the first day of
the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which has been marked by
surges in violence in the past.

Those killed on Tuesday were two Iraqi soldiers and a
civilian, police said. The six wounded were four Iraqi soldiers
and two policemen. It was not immediately clear what sort of
convoy was entering the area at the time.

It is not the first time bombers have managed to penetrate
the Green Zone, a vast area on the west bank of the Tigris
river that used to be part of Saddam Hussein’s palace complex
but has been occupied by U.S. forces since the 2003 invasion.

Last October, on the eve of Ramadan, two al Qaeda suicide
bombers blew themselves up in a coordinated attack deep inside
the zone, targeting a popular restaurant and a nearby street,
killing five people, at least three of them Americans.

Last month, a vehicle suspected of being loaded with
explosives entered the Green Zone but was stopped by the
military. The vehicle was then blown up and the U.S. military
then said that it had not in fact been a car bomb.

Other entrances to the Green Zone have been attacked
before. In June, at least 23 people were killed just down the
street from the checkpoint attacked on Tuesday, when a suicide
bomber walked into a crowded restaurant popular with policemen.