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FBI: Iraq Bomb Made From Old Munitions
EFL:The FBI said Wednesday the deadly bomb that ripped through U.N. headquarters in Iraq was made from 1,000 pounds of old munitions, including a single 500-pound bomb - all materials from Saddam Husseinâs prewar arsenal that required no "great degree of sophistication" to assemble. An FBI special agent at the site of Tuesdayâs unprecedented attack on the world organization said it was impossible yet to say whether the bomb was the work of Saddam loyalists or foreign terrorists. My money is on the foreign terrorists, itâs their MO. FBI Special Agent Thomas Fuentes said the bomb had been delivered by a KAMAZ flatbed truck. Such trucks were made in the former Soviet Union. U.S. officials had said on Tuesday that a cement truck delivered the explosives. "We believe it (the bomb) was made from existing military ordnance. ... I cannot say that it required any great degree of sophistication or expertise to create...," Fuentes told The Associated Press. Just piled everything they could on the truck and wired the biggest bomb to the switch. Fuentes said human remains found in the area where the bomb exploded, about 50 feet from Vieira de Melloâs office, suggested a suicide bombing. He said that could not be absolutely determined until laboratory testing was complete. The positioning of the bomb near the envoyâs office suggested he was the target of the attack, L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, told CNN. Or it was just the closest point to the road. The truck bomb was detonated at the concrete wall outside the three-story Canal Hotel at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, blasting a 6-foot-deep crater in the ground. Except for the recently built concrete wall, U.N. officials at the headquarters refused heavy security because the United Nations "did not want a large American presence outside," said Salim Lone, the U.N. spokesman in Baghdad. OK, thatâs confirmation directly from the UN, they didnât want American guards. Posted by: Steve 2003-08-20 |
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