IRAQ: File of U.N. special envoy Ad Melkert, who escaped unharmed after being involved in a roadside bomb attack

Record ID: 725830

  • Title: IRAQ: File of U.N. special envoy Ad Melkert, who escaped unharmed after being involved in a roadside bomb attack
  • Date: 20th October 2010
  • Summary: ARBIL, IRAQ (JULY 1, 2010) (REUTERS) OFFICIALS ACCOMPANYING ARBIL GOVERNOR AND UN SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE TOURING CITADEL SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR IRAQ, AD MELKERT, AND KURDISH OFFICIALS TOURING CITADEL ARBIL GOVERNOR, NOZAD HADI, LAYING CORNER STONE FOR RENOVATION PROJECT OF CITADEL PROJECT CORNER STONE (SOUNDBITE) (English) AD MELKERT, SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR IRAQ, SAYING: "We are here as the U.N. and UNESCO that are supporting the government and the town of Arbil and that is really bringing here the expertise from all over the world how to do the restoration, the reconstruction and to build a capacity of the people that in the coming years this can become a marvellous world-class project." INTERIOR OF CITADEL
  • Embargoed: 4th November 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA9JTBEPMLDVIR2DP8XA3NY4AFK
  • Story Text: A roadside bomb some Iraqi officials blamed on Shi'ite militants hit a convoy on Tuesday (October 19) carrying the U.N. special envoy to Iraq, Ad Melkert, but he was unhurt, the United Nations said.
    Police said the bomb damaged the second-to-last vehicle, an Iraqi SWAT car, in the U.N.-Iraqi police convoy as it was leaving the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding three.
    Melkert was in Najaf for a visit to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shi'ite Muslim cleric. After the meeting, Melkert urged Iraq's political leaders to sit down and negotiate the formation of a coalition government without further delay, seven months after an inconclusive election yielded no outright winner, Sistani's office said.
    The lingering political impasse has raised tensions in Iraq just as the sectarian slaughter between once-dominant Sunnis and majority Shi'ites triggered after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion fades, and U.S. forces begin to gradually withdraw.
    Overall violence in Iraq has fallen sharply but attacks by a stubborn Sunni Islamist insurgency and some Shi'ite militia groups continue on a daily basis.
    An Iraqi police officer in Najaf said an investigation had been opened into the attack.
    Shi'ite militia Asaib al-Haq, or Leagues of Righteousness, which splintered from the Mehdi Army of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, frequently claims credit for attacking U.S. forces and kidnapping foreign nationals.
    U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told a daily U.N. news briefing in New York it was not clear if the U.N. envoy was specifically targeted.
    Muqdad al-Moussawi, spokesman for Najaf police, said the likely target in the convoy was the city's police chief. Despite the U.N. acknowledgement of the incident, he denied that Melkert had been in the convoy.
    Major General Hassan al-Baidhani, the head of Iraqi army staff at the Baghdad operations command, said Melkert had already flown out of the airport where the convoy had dropped him off before the bombing occurred.
    It was unclear why the accounts were inconsistent.
    The United Nations operates under tight security in Iraq and its headquarters is within Baghdad's fortified Green Zone neighbourhood where many government offices and embassies are located.
    A truck bomb at the U.N.'s previous headquarters in Baghdad killed 22 people in 2003, including the then-U.N. envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian.
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