truck bomb destroyed the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad Tuesday, August 19, just over a week after a top official warned of "guerilla warfare."
In BosNewsLife interview published August 9, the U.N. Consultant and International Chief Observer of the Food for Oil Program and the U.N. Development Program Marcel Alberts, predicted increased attacks.
"We know what happened in the Vietnam war…(In Iraq) Every day one or two Americans are dying. You should not be surprised that number of casualties goes up," he said.
Alberts, 60, described the U.N. headquarters and scene of Tuesday’s blast as "a prison." "Around 7.30 am we leave from the hotel to a complex with a wall of three and a halve metres with barbed wire. We stay there till around seven a clock in the evening, before coming back," he added.
CURFEW IMPOSED
Although the American imposed curfew starts around 11.00 hours PM, "at the U.N. we have to go to bed three hours earlier," Alberts explained before Tuesday’s attack.
As American troops continued to rescue the estimated 100 injured people beneath the rubble, President George W. Bush said he asked "God to bless the souls of those hurt in Iraq."
"No political cause can ever justify intentional attacks on civilians," said Joanna Weschler, U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch in a statement send to BosNewsLife.
HUMAN RIGHTS
"What happened today in Baghdad violates the most fundamental principles of humanitarian law. It also undermines the U.N.’ work monitoring human rights in Iraq," she said.
U.S. officials and analysts described the bomb blast at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad "as an attack against a soft target" carried out by loyalists of the former regime, including possible foreign Moslim extremists, who oppose Western style reforms.
These groups are also linked to killings of minority Christians in recent weeks in Baghdad and other area’s, BosNewsLife has learned. It was not immediately clear what impact, if any, the latest violence would have on Christian aid organizations.
CHRISTIAN CHALLENGE
Yet pastor Ghassan Thomas of the Evangelical Alliance Church in Baghdad challenged Christians earlier to continue to preach the Gospel in this hurting nation.
"Before one month I went to Jordan and a lot of Iraqi people came to me and said: "Why can you say that Iraq is wonderful when there are people killed on the street and there is no security?" I answered: "Because the people need Jesus Christ at this time. It’s the perfect time to speak about Jesus Christ," he told BosNewsLife.
"They have nothing now, their heart is empty. So they need to learn how to obey God and how to be a Christian man or woman." The 33-year old pastor added that he was ready "to die for Jesus Christ" if needed.
