The first day of Ramadan was marked in Baghdad by a hardening of resistance, slaughter and chaos, writes Salah Hemeid A day after US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz escaped unhurt following a rocket attack on the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad the city was rocked by a series of explosions that left 43 people dead -- including two staffers of the International Committee of the Red Cross -- and more than 200 injured. Monday's attacks in the Iraqi capital were the bloodiest since the end of major combat in the US- led war to oust Saddam Hussein six months ago. In addition to the suicide bombing of the ICRC headquarters three blasts were reported at police stations. Eight Iraqi policemen, one US soldier, and 26 bystanders were killed, including three children, and 224 people wounded. The blast at the Red Cross headquarters occurred when an ambulance carrying a bomb exploded outside the offices at 8.30am, killing two security guards and eight labourers passing in a lorry. Iraqi policemen foiled an attack on a fourth police station in the capital's eastern suburbs by pulling the driver from his car before he could detonate the explosives installed in the car. The explosions on Monday plunged the capital into chaos on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan. Ambulances raced through the streets and smoke rose from smouldering cars blown up in the blasts. Iraqi police officers dug through rubble to search for bodies. The violence continued on Tuesday when a car bomb exploded near a police station in Fallujah, killing at least six people. The attack came hours after four American soldiers were wounded in ambushes in the northern city of Mosul. Later, in Baghdad, the capital's Deputy Mayor Faris Abdul-Razzaq Al-Assam, was killed in a hit and run shooting raising fears that increasingly coordinated attacks are targeting Iraqis who work with the US-led coalition. In Washington President Bush said the US would stay the course to rebuild Iraq. "We're determined not to be intimidated by these killers," Bush told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. He promised the US would change tactics and stiffen defences and would not be intimidated by the wave of suicide bombers intent on discouraging cooperation with the American occupation. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Al- Ahram Weekly "these kinds of suicide attacks bear all the hallmarks of Al-Qa'eda operations." "They are alien to the Iraqi character," he said in a telephone interview from London, where he is meeting British officials. Paul Bremer, speaking to Fox television, blamed the attacks on three groups: those associated with the ousted government of Saddam Hussein, common criminals released by him in the weeks before the American invasion, and terrorists who had crossed into Iraq from Iran and Syria. Following the Monday attacks US Brigadier General Mark Hertling told reporters that the attacker captured in the foiled raid on the fourth police station had a Syrian passport. "He's a foreign fighter. He had a Syrian passport and the policemen claim that as he was shot and fell he said he was Syrian." Most analysts believe that loyalists of the ousted Iraqi leader were probably behind the latest series of bombings that show much greater coordination than earlier attacks. The rocket attack on Al-Rashid Hotel showed a more sophisticated use of technology than previously seen, particularly in its use of remote-controlled detonations. The suicide bombing against the Red Cross was clearly designed to drive aid workers out of Iraq just when the US is trying to boost the reconstruction drive and to draw aid agencies in while the rest of Monday's attacks sent a clear message that anyone seen to be involved in rebuilding was now a target. The attacks appear to have worked, shaking the confidence of international organisations taking part in the reconstruction of Iraq. The United Nations pulled back drastically after its headquarters was bombed, and following the Red Cross attack many international relief organisations are now contemplating the same move. Without the relief workers there can be little realistic hope of getting a shattered Iraqi society back on its feet. Meanwhile, the mounting toll of casualties is wearing down the patience of Iraqis and is likely to discourage many from enlisting in the American- sponsored security forces, which Washington now sees as its best hope for relieving overstretched American troops. The Bush administration has so far resisted calls from within its ranks to lock down Baghdad or order US forces to retreat to their bunkers. Such moves would only increase their isolation from ordinary Iraqis and reinforce perceptions of them as foreign occupiers, something they can hardly afford to do. Yet if the situation in Baghdad continues to deteriorate it is difficult to see precisely how the US will be able to extract itself from an increasingly chaotic situation. More attacks like those on the Red Cross offices and Iraqi police stations could lead to a longer and more difficult occupation than even the hawks in the administration will find sustainable.
