Canal Hotel bombing

Common card · No. 466920

The Canal Hotel bombing was a suicide truck bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, during the afternoon of 19 August 2003. It killed 23 people, including the United Nations' (UN) Special Representative in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello, and wounded over 100, including human rights lawyer and political activist Amin Mekki Medani. The attack targeted the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq created just five days earlier. The attack resulted in the withdrawal within weeks of most of the 600 UN staff members from Iraq. These events were to have a profound and lasting impact on the UN's security practices globally. The attack was followed by a suicide car bomb attack on 22 September 2003 near UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing a security guard and wounding 19 people. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of terrorist organization Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, claimed responsibility in April 2004 for the 19 August blast.

Read on Wikipedia · Image MSGT JAMES M. BOWMAN, USAF, Public domain