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from Stratfor.com
Three workers at the Iraqi parliament’s cafeteria in Baghdad were detained for questioning April 13 in connection with the suicide bombing in the cafeteria a day earlier, which killed one Sunni parliamentarian and injured 22 people, including seven members of parliament. The attack, allegedly carried out by the bodyguard of one Sunni lawmaker – possibly with the help of someone working inside the facility – illustrates once again the degree to which insurgents have infiltrated Iraq’s security forces.
The bombing occurred after lawmakers finished the last parliament session of the week and many had gathered for lunch in the cafeteria, located in the former Baghdad Convention Center where the parliament holds its sessions. The convention center sits just inside the Green Zone, the unofficial name for the maximum-security International Zone that is home to most Iraqi government offices, the U.S. Embassy, military headquarters and thousands of Baghdad residents. Although the Green Zone features multiple layers of security – including blocked roads, concrete barriers and checkpoints – it is not as safe as, say, a military base because it must allow for the movement of civilians. This attack, however, did not occur entirely without warning. On March 31, U.S. security personnel found components for a suicide vest in a trash bin inside the Green Zone.
Security at the convention center itself, however, has been the responsibility of Iraqi security forces since the Iraqis requested the facility be turned over to them, saying security procedures employed by U.S. troops were too intrusive. This enables people to enter the convention center without having to be cleared for the rest of the Green Zone. Since the Iraqis took over security at the center, a number of incidents have occurred in and around the facility, including attempted abductions.
The lack of layered security at the convention center, however, is just one of the reasons for the success of this latest attack. Iraqi security forces are heavily penetrated by insurgents and militias, making them quite unreliable. In this case, the bomber apparently belonged to the al Qaeda-led jihadist coalition Islamic State of Iraq, which claimed responsibility for the attack shortly after the blast.
In order to circumvent security at the convention center, the insurgents likely obtained the services of someone on the inside. This could have involved smuggling the explosives, detonators and the bomb’s other components into the center over a long period of time, and then hiding them for assembly later. In some cases, smuggling components into the Green Zone is as easy as throwing them over the wall to an accomplice on the inside.
However, the bomber’s position as a bodyguard would have given him relatively free access to the convention center, possibly allowing him to smuggle the device or its components into the convention center via a parliamentarian’s motorcade. The bodyguard, then, might have needed someone on the inside to help hide the components and assemble the vest. On the day of the attack, bomb-sniffing dogs were brought in to check people entering the convention center, though this process would have been fruitless if the explosives already were inside.
Given that insurgents have infiltrated the Iraqi government and security forces – and compounding that problem with the heavy movement of traffic in and out of the Green Zone every day – it was only a matter of time before a suicide bomber struck. Because of the density of high-value targets in the zone and its political and symbolic significance, the Green Zone remains an attractive target for militants. This successful attack will serve to encourage other suicide bombers.
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