BAGHDAD — An attacker, his body wrapped in explosives and his car filled with 50 pounds of TNT, struck a police checkpoint outside U.N. headquarters in Baghdad yesterday, killing an Iraqi policeman who stopped him and wounding 19 persons.
A U.S. military spokesman at the scene said the bomber, who also died in the 8:10 a.m. blast, was trying to get into the U.N. compound at the Canal Hotel, where a truck bomb a month ago killed 23 persons including the top U.N. envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Yesterday’s attack wounded two U.N. workers.
The attack, apparently timed to snarl attempts by Washington to win U.N. legitimacy for the U.S. occupation of this Arab country, could diminish the world body’s willingness to become more deeply involved in Iraq’s reconstruction. The United Nations already sharply reduced its work here after the Aug. 19 bombing.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that if the situation continues to deteriorate, U.N. operations in Iraq “will be handicapped considerably.”
“I am shocked and distressed by this latest attack on our premises in Baghdad,” Mr. Annan said at the United Nations.
The blast, which could be heard over much of the Iraqi capital, took place a day before President Bush was to address the U.N. General Assembly. He was expected to offer an expanded U.N. role in rebuilding Iraq, a condition set by many nations for contributing peacekeepers and money to the reconstruction effort.
The bomber in yesterday’s attack was blocked at a newly established police checkpoint on a street in back of the compound. As police inspected his car, he detonated the explosives.
Praising new security arrangements around the hotel, a U.S. military officer at the scene credited Iraqi police with preventing an even greater loss.
“I reiterate that he was not through the checkpoint, and he was not near the U.N. compound. That means security is working,” said Capt. Sean Kirley of the U.S. 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
The bomb exploded about 200 yards from any of the buildings or mobile offices inside the compound and about 400 yards from the hotel building.
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