Spanish Diplomat and Eight Iraqis Killed in Separate Incidents in Baghdad

09/10/2003| IslamWeb

A Spanish diplomat in Iraq was shot dead upon leaving his home in Baghdad Thursday, a Spanish foreign ministry spokesman said. The victim, Jose Antonio Bernal, was described as an information attache in the Iraqi capital. **Car Bomb Kills Eight Iraqis*** A car bomb exploded in Baghdad police station, killing at least three policemen and five civilians and wounding scores in the blast, Iraqi police said. "It was definitely a suicide bomb," one policeman at the scene said. "We found the head of the attacker. It had been blown off his body. He was bearded, and his body was charred." At the police station in the impoverished Shi'ite Muslim district of Sadr City, the wreckage of a car lay beside the building. "We were standing in front of the police station and a car sped up and slammed into other cars, and there was a large explosion," policeman Anwar Abdul Rahim told Reuters in a nearby hospital, his chest spattered with blood. Police spokesman Capt. Basim Mahmoud said hundreds of people had been in the building waiting to receive salaries. He said three to five Iraqi policemen had been reported killed and 10 to 15 wounded. The car exploded about 25 meters (yards) from the building. The number of fatalities from the blast was the largest single death toll from any attack in Baghdad since a suicide truck bomb attack on the United Nations in August that killed 22 people including the U.N. head of mission. **PHOTO CAPTION*** An Iraqi policeman walks through the blast area after an explosion outside a police station in the Baghdad suburb of Al Sadr city October 9, 2003. (REUTERS/Jamal Saidi)