Canal Hotel bombing

The Canal Hotel Bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, in the afternoon of August 19, 2003, killed at least 22 people, including the United Nations' Special Representative in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello, and wounded over 100. The blast targeted the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq created just 5 days earlier. (The United Nations had used the hotel as its headquarters in Iraq since the early 1990s.) The attack was followed by a second bombing a month later which resulted in the withdrawal of the 600 UN staff members in Iraq. These events were to have a profound and lasting impact on the UN's security practices globally.

Abu Musab Zarqawi, a leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for the blast.

The bombing
In his book The Prince of the Marshes, British writer Rory Stewart recounts his experiences at the Canal Hotel the day of the bombing.

The explosion occurred while Martin Barber, director of the UN's Mine Action Service (UNMAS) was holding a press conference. The explosion damaged a spinal cord treatment center at the hospital next door and a U.S. Army Civil-Military Operations Centre located at the rear of the Canal Hotel, and the resulting shockwave was felt over a mile away.

The blast was caused by a suicide bomber driving a truck bomb. The vehicle has been identified as a large 2002 flatbed Kamaz (manufactured in Eastern Europe and part of the former Iraqi establishment's fleet). Investigators in Iraq suspected the bomb was made from old munitions, including a single 500-pound bomb, from Iraq's pre-war arsenal.

The OCHA Humanitarian Information Centre (HIC) for Iraq (UNOHCI) was located directly beneath the office of Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and suffered a direct hit. Of the eight staff and one visitor in the office at the time, seven were killed instantly, but Sérgio Vieira de Mello and Gil Loescher were critically wounded and trapped in debris under the collapsed portion of the building. An American soldier - First Sergeant William von Zehle - crawled down through the collapsed building and worked to extricate the two men. He was joined later by another American soldier - Staff Sergeant Andre Valentine - and the two men spent the next three hours trying to extricate the two survivors without benefit of any rescue equipment. Loescher was rescued after having his crushed legs amputated by the soldiers, but Vieira de Mello died shortly before he would have been able to have been removed.

According to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, de Mello was specifically targeted in the blast. The reason given by al-Zarqawi for targeting de Mello was that he had helped East Timor become an independent state (see the Indonesian occupation of East Timor). Zarqawi said that de Mello had participated in the unlawful removal of territory from the Islamic Caliphate and was therefore a thief and a criminal.

Second bomb
The bombing was followed on September 22, 2003, by another car bomb outside the Canal Hotel. The blast killed the bomber and an Iraqi policeman and wounded 19 others, including UN workers. The second attack led to the withdrawal of some 600 UN international staff from Baghdad, along with employees of other aid agencies. In August 2004, de Mello's replacement, Ashraf Qazi, arrived in Baghdad along with a small number of staff.

List of victims
Marilyn Manuel, a member of Vieira de Mello's staff from the Philippines, was originally listed as missing and presumed dead in the collapsed section of the building. However, she had been evacuated to an Iraqi hospital which did not notify the UN of her presence. Her survival was confirmed four days later.

Suspects


As of 2006, the prime suspects in this bombing are followers of the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had purportedly claimed responsibility for this attack. In January 2005, a top bombmaker for Zarqawi's group, Abu Omar al-Kurdi, was captured by the coalition and claimed his associates made the bomb used in this attack. On December 16, 2005, Iraqi authorities issued an arrest warrant for Mullah Halgurd al-Khabir, a commander of Ansar al-Sunna, in connection with the attack. In an audio tape quoted here, Zarqawi motivated the bombing of the UN building. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera identified the suicide bomber as Algerian national Fahdal Nassim. Other suspects included Baathists, militant Sunni and Shiite groups, organized crime, and tribal elements. Blame was initially thought to lie with Ansar al-Islam, which was thought at the time to be Zarqawi's group. An otherwise unknown group called the "Armed Vanguards of the Second Mohammed Army" claimed they were responsible for the attack.

Awraz Abd Aziz Mahmoud Sa'eed, known as al-Kurdi, has confessed to helping plan the attack for Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. al-Kurdi was captured, judged and executed by hanging on July 3, 2007.

Responses
The suicide bombing of the United Nations in Baghdad drew overwhelming condemnation. Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General, commented that the bombing would not stop the organization's efforts to rebuild Iraq, and said: "Nothing can excuse this act of unprovoked and murderous violence against men and women who went to Iraq for one purpose only: to help the Iraqi people recover their independence and sovereignty, and to rebuild their country as fast as possible, under leaders of their own choosing."

However, since this event the UN country team's expatriates and leaders relocated in Amman (Jordan) and continued to work remotely. Only some Iraqis have continued under drastic security measures all around the country (except in Kurdistan where they are more numerous and can move more freely). Few expatriates are, 5 years later, authorized to go inside Iraq (including Kurdistan) and only inside huge security compounds such as the so-called "Green Zone" in Baghdad. Humanitarian support is now entirely conducted inside the country by NGOs, under UN remote supervision.

In 2004, Gil Loescher's daughter, documentary filmmaker Margaret Loescher, made a critically acclaimed film about her father's experiences called Pulled from the Rubble.

The World Humanitarian Day
On 11 December 2008, the United Nations General Assembly made history when it adopted the Swedish sponsored GA Resolution A/63/139 on the Strengthening of the Coordination of Emergency Assistance of the United Nations, that amongst other important humanitarian decisions, decided to designate 19 August as the World Humanitarian Day (WHD). The Resolution gives for the first time, a special recognition to all humanitarian and United Nations and associated personnel who have worked in the promotion of the humanitarian cause and those who have lost their lives in the cause of duty and urges all Member States, entities of the United Nations within existing resources, as well as the other International Organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations to observe it annually in an appropriate way. It marks the day on which the then Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello and his 21 colleagues tragically made the ultimate sacrifices in the cause of duty following the bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad.