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Car bomb blows up inside Baghdad Green Zone, 3 dead

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 October 2005, 06:19 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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