Bombing of Government Office in Baghdad Kills 1, Wounds 5

A bomb exploded in a prayer room at Iraq’s Ministry of Religious Affairs on Wednesday, killing a senior civil servant and seriously injuring five people.

No one claimed responsibility, and official media reports did not identify any specific group. But the official Iraqi news agency INA said the bomb was locally made.

Iraqi television blamed “agents hired by the enemies of Iraq,” usually considered to be a reference to Kurdish separatists or Iranian-linked Shiite Muslim rebels.

Baghdad residents said the explosion, in the northern district of Bab al Moaddam, sent plumes of smoke over the city. Streets near the building were littered with glass and stained with blood.

TV images showed the frame of the aluminum ceiling collapsed into the wreckage of broken glass and desks. The force of the blast bent ceiling fans and cracked concrete walls.

The morning explosion was first reported by Shebab (Youth) television, run by President Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday. INA carried the news hours later and named the dead man as Attallah Mohammed Saleh, a director general in the ministry.

Civil defense sources told the agency that six pounds of dynamite smuggled into the building wrecked a prayer section and damaged ministry annexes. Earlier reports on Shebab channel said nearby houses were also damaged.

There has been a string of bombings over the last two years as U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq’s August, 1990, invasion of Kuwait throttled the country’s economy. One person was killed and three people were wounded in similar blasts in Baghdad in the past year.

The last such attack was Aug. 22, when a booby-trapped car exploded outside the state-run Al Jumhuriyah newspaper office, causing no injuries.

Not all these attacks have been reported by the official media as the government has sought to play down public discontent.

Iraq has accused Iranian government agents of staging previous bombings. Wednesday’s blast coincided with reports that Iranian troops had attacked an anti-Tehran guerrilla base inside Iraq.

The Moujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian opposition group, said Wednesday that Iranian troops had attacked the main base of its guerrilla army inside Iraq just after midnight. The soldiers fled when the guerrillas returned fire, the Moujahedeen said, adding that there were no casualties.

The attack, if confirmed, would be the first Iranian cross-border raid since May, 1993.