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| Iraq |
| Baghdad attackers paid $10,000 to pass checkpoints |
| 2009-08-25 |
| A mastermind of last week's attacks in the heart of Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone says they paid $10,000 to get the bomb-laden trucks past the checkpoints. In a video released on Iraqi television, the Iraqi military showed a Saddam Hussein loyalist on Iraq's national television who was apparently confessing to coordinating one of the two truck bombings that killed at least 101 people and injured hundreds of others in Baghdad last Wednesday. Wissam Ali Kadhem, a former police chief, acknowledged plotting the attack and said that $10,000 was paid in bribes to checkpoint security staff in order to reach the Finance Ministry where the blast occurred. Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, the Chief Military Spokesman for Baghdad said the man was a senior member of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath Party. He said the culprit had confessed before his lawyer and judiciary officials to supervising the attack against the Finance Ministry. At least 101 people were killed and hundreds of others were wounded in the series of mid-morning blasts, which coincided with the sixth anniversary of the deadly bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. |
| Posted by:Fred |