United Nations, Aug 19: The international community erupted in outrage at a bomb attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad vowing that violence would not derail efforts to rebuild Iraq. "Such terrorist incidents cannot break the will of the international community to further intensify its efforts to help the people of Iraq," the UN Security Council said in a statement after the massive truck bombing.
US President George W. Bush denounced the "terrorists" behind the attack that claimed the life of Sergio Vieira De Mello, the top UN envoy overseeing efforts to rebuild in Iraq after years of sanctions and the US-led war.
"The civilized world will not be intimidated, and these killers will not determine the future of Iraq," he said in a hastily arranged appearance at his Texas ranch.
UN secretary general Kofi Annan cut short his holiday in Finland and decided to return to New York, even before news that Brazilian diplomat Vieira De Mello had been killed, spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
Annan said in a statement that everyone at the UN was "shocked and dismayed" at the bombing -- the latest in a string of deadly attacks on those involved in rebuilding efforts. The head of Iraq's interim governing council also condemned the bombing, while the US overseer to Iraq, Paul Bremer, flanked by General Ricardo Sanchez at the site of the blast, vowed to find those behind the bombing.
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, facing criticism at home for supporting the war, said, "We will not allow terrorists to weaken our resolve in bringing about a better Iraq."
France, which pledged its full support for the united nations in Iraq, vigorously condemned the attack. "Acts as odious as this can only prompt indignation and unreserved condemnation," President Jacques Chirac said.
"China condemns the violent attack," foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan said. Pope John Paul II sent his condolences to the United Nations and relatives of the victims and called for all those engaged in violence to "abandon the ways of hatred."
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva said De Mello was a "victim of the insanity of terrorism," and decreed three days of official mourning for a man who was the country's most prominent international diplomat in decades.
Mexico's President Vicente Fox said the attack "clearly demonstrates that terrorism continues to constitute a threat for all member countries of the United Nations."
Russia called the attack a "barbaric act" that was "aimed at undermining the already difficult process of postwar stabilization in Iraq."
The European Union foreign and security affairs chief, Javier Solana, said the bombing was a "despicable act ... against people who are working for Iraq's future and an attack against the international community's determination to reconstruct Iraq”.
Syria and Lebanon, among the Arab countries that had fiercely opposed the US invasion, expressed concern about the consequences of an attack on the United Nations, seen by many Arabs as a counterweight to US power in the world.
Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa, a sharp critic of the US role in Iraq, said his organisation "expresses its solidarity with the United Nations and demands that the international community support the UN mission in Baghdad and ensure its protection."
Adnan Pachachi, a member of Iraq's governing council presidency, said he feared that Vieira De Mello's vision for Iraqi self-determination was now at risk from elements who "don't want a stable and secure Iraq”.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark described Vieira De Mello's death as "a shocking loss" that "robs the United Nations of one of its finest workers”. Bureau Report