Washington, Aug 20: Paul Bremer, the US administrator for Iraq, has suggested that foreigners who possibly entered from Syria were responsible for the blast at the UN headquarters in Baghdad. "It certainly was a very large bomb. It may have been a bomb that was built here in Iraq. It may also have been done by foreign terrorists. We have foreign terrorists here in Iraq that we have to worry about," Bremer told.
He said coalition forces have information that attacks on the US-led occupation have been planned and executed by people infiltrating into Iraq from Syria.
"One of the things that makes us ... know they're coming over from Syria is because we've caught and killed some of them. That's a pretty good way to find out. And we know that there are what we call rat lines, lines of escape into and out of Syria that we have gotten track of," Bremer said.
"We have found foreign terrorists from a variety of countries, found and, in some cases, killed foreign terrorists from a variety of countries, including Syria, people carrying passports from Syria, Sudan, Yemen, and so forth."
Bremer told the blast would prompt coalition authorities to re-examine security measures in Iraq. "We'll learn what we can from this particular incident, and then we will continue, as always, to make security our first job. But I don't know, at this point, exactly, how that will play out," he said.

Bureau Report