UN Envoy Killed in Baghdad Blast

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A truck bomb explosion ripped through a hotel used by the United Nations as its headquarters in Baghdad today, leaving at least 14 people dead, including the top United Nations representative in Iraq.

The death of the official, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was announced at the United Nations headquarters in New York by Fred Eckhard, the spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Up to 50 people were wounded in the blast, and body parts were scattered around the rubble, a witness said. The witness added that he had seen bodies being dragged out of the rubble, and American soldiers sent to the scene pulling sheets over the faces of others lying on the ground.

Other people were seen crawling out of the building and stumbling over the debris. United Nations employees, many of them Westerners, were crying and sobbing, the witness, an interpreter for The New York Times, said.

Mr. Eckhard said he could confirm that 14 people died in the blast, which he said left dozens wounded. Many are still trapped in the rubble, he added.

Before the death of the Brazilian-born Mr. Vieira de Mello was announced, L. Paul Bremer III, the top United States administrator in Iraq, referred at a briefing here to "my dear friend, Sergio," and added:

"It may well be that he was the target of this attack. The truck was parked in such a place here in front of the building that it had to affect his office."

Mr. Vieira de Mello, 55, was named to the post in Iraq in May. From September 2002 he had served as the high commissioner for human rights.

President Bush, speaking in Crawford, Tex., condemned the bombing as the work of "enemies of the civilized world." He said: "The terrorists who struck today have again shown their contempt for the innocent. They showed their fear of progress and their hatred of peace."

The United Nations personnel and Iraqi citizens who were killed in the bombing "were in the country on a purely humanitarian mission," the president said.

The vehicle used in the blast was described by one witness as a cement mixer driven at high speed by a suicide bomber. The truck was rammed into a sand-covered parking lot that abuts the sprawling compound though is outside the high walls that surround it, blowing a crater in the wall.

A military spokeswoman in Baghdad said American forces had sent medical units and a quick reaction force to the building, the Canal Hotel. Victims were being evacuated by American military helicopters.

At his briefing, Mr. Bremer said that a hospital next door to the hotel compound had also been destroyed. More than 70 patients were evacuated from the hospital, which specialized in spinal injuries, he said.

Though there are security controls at the entrance to the United Nations compound, on the southeast outskirts of Baghdad, there are no security controls at the entrance of the parking lot next door.

At the entranceway, the second of two guards would carry out a personal search and hand each visitor a badge. Outside the compound, guards often passed mirrors under cars to check for weapons or bombs.

Today, big twisted pieces of metal, apparently the remains of the vehicle used in the explosion, were lying outside a wall surrounding the compound.

The building housed hundreds of people from the United Nations. An entire corner of the building collapsed in the blast, and windows in the rest of the building were blown out. But the large blue and white United Nations flag was still flying overhead.

Mustafa Naji, a United Nations employee, said: "We were in this meeting about land mines and all of a sudden there was an explosion. The lights went out and we ran down the corridor and out the building."

Another witness, Abdul Rahman al-Apshan, 35, a therapist at a hospital next to the hotel compound, said: "All of a sudden I saw myself in the air, and falling down to the ground. We didn't expect anything. This is against the Iraqi people."

One more witness, Loi Badrya, said, "All of a sudden it was bang, bang — very close together."

Bernard B. Kerik, former New York City police commissioner who is leading the effort to retrain Iraq's police force, said there was an enormous amount of explosives used in the blast, "and there are indications it was related to a suicide bombing."

He added, "Its the same people that are fighting the coalition, but they have to learn that the coalition is not leaving."

The explosion, around 4:15 p.m. Baghdad time, came 12 days after a car bomb exploded outside the Jordan Embassy in Baghdad, killing 11 people.

No suspects have been arrested in that incident, but there has been much talk of involvement in terror attacks by Ansar Islam, a militant group linked to Al Qaeda that has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States.

American officials believe hundreds of members of Ansar Islam have entered Iraq from Iran and that the group has reconstituted itself in Baghdad.

The officials have expressed great concern in the last two weeks about the possibility of an attack like the one today, although the group was not formally linked to the blast.