BAGHDAD (AFP) — Bombs exploded outside the Iraqi capital's tightly guarded Green Zone on Tuesday as US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte wrapped up a visit focusing on a controversial military pact.
Two powerful blasts went off in quick succession at a time of heavy traffic. An Iraqi security official said one soldier and six civilians were wounded in the attack on the edge of the Green Zone.
Inside the zone, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters an agreement was "very close," but nothing was final. However, there were "new ideas and new language" on a mutually acceptable deal with the US, he said.
"This needs some bold political decisions now," he added.
The first blast targeted a parked Iraqi armoured vehicle and a car bomb went off minutes later at a nearby parking lot opposite the foreign ministry building, which shares a boundary with the Green Zone.
Iraq's government and the US embassy are located in the Green Zone, to which access is tightly controlled by American troops.
Witnesses said a limpet-type magnetic mine had been used in first attack on the armoured vehicle parked at a checkpoint leading to the Green Zone. The tyres of the beige-coloured vehicle caught fire and the doors were blown out.
Residents in nearby apartment buildings rushed out to see what had happened but heavily armed troops forced them back. They also prevented them from using mobile phones, which are often used to detonate roadside bombs.
Minutes after the attacks, Negroponte began his scheduled press conference with Zebari at the Green Zone.
"Progress on security is striking," Negroponte told reporters at the US-manned press centre. He said he was "encouraged" by the advancements in Iraq in terms of security and policies.
Negroponte was wrapping up a four-day visit to Baghdad for talks on the controversial deal on the presence of American troops in the country after a UN Security Council mandate for multinational forces expires on December 31.
Even as they spoke, the US military reported another death of an American soldier killed in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday in a gunbattle with an Al-Qaeda suspect.
The latest casualty raised to 4,178 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
However, security authorities in Baghdad have said incidents of violence had reached a four-year low in the past few months despite a spike during the closing days of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
From the beginning of this month, some 54,000 Sunni Arabs deployed in the Baghdad province to battle Al-Qaeda embraced Iraq's Shiite-led government as the US military transferred responsibility for them to Baghdad.
The top US military commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, told reporters at the weekend that the transfer of the former militia to the authority of the Baghdad government had gone off well.
He said security across the country had improved.
Outside the Green Zone, Iraqi soldiers fired in the air to keep motorists and pedestrians awat shortly after the twin bombings. Two fire fighting vehicles doused the flames.
In November 2007, almost at the same place, a booby-trap device exploded as a US convoy drove through, killing an American officer.
The latest attacks in the central Salhiyah neighbourhood of Baghdad came despite a tight security cordon and stepped-up checks on vehicles and followed a spate of bombings in the capital last week.
The US military said on Saturday it had killed an Al-Qaeda militant who planned some of the biggest bombings in Baghdad.
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