WORLD
BAGHDAD – The Polish ambassador to Iraq was slightly wounded and two civilians, including a bodyguard, were killed in a roadside bomb attack Wednesday in downtown Baghdad, according to Polish government officials. Gen. Edward Pietrzyk was being treated for minor burns covering 20 percent of his body and ‘”is going to be fine,” said Deputy Ambassador Waldemar Figaj, who spoke to The Associated Press from a hospital in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
BAGHDAD – The Polish ambassador
to Iraq was slightly wounded and
two civilians, including a bodyguard,
were killed in a roadside bomb attack
Wednesday in downtown Baghdad,
according to Polish government
officials.
Gen. Edward Pietrzyk was being
treated for minor burns covering 20
percent of his body and ‘”is going
to be fine,” said Deputy Ambassador
Waldemar Figaj, who spoke to The
Associated Press from a hospital in
Baghdad’s Green Zone. Pietrzyk was
to be flown home to Poland by way
of Germany later in the day.
A civilian passer-by died after at
least two roadside bombs were detonated
around 10 a.m., an Iraqi police
official said on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to
release the information. A Polish
security guard, Bartosz Orzechowski,
29, died at the hospital a short time
later, Poland’s Interior Minister
Wladyslaw Stasiak said during a news
conference.
At least 11 people, including three
security guards with the convoy,
were also wounded in the attack in
the Karradah neighborhood, police
said. The guards worked for Poland’s
Government Protection Office, which
is responsible for the security of Polish
officials in Iraq, said Dariusz Aleksandrowicz,
the agency’s spokesman.
The attack, which took place a few
hundred yards from the Polish Embassy,
seemed to target the ambassador,
said Robert Szaniawski, a spokesman
for the Polish Foreign Ministry.
‘We still don’t have the reasons for
the attack,’ he said, adding that the
embassy is not in the heavily fortified
Green Zone.
State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack said the United States was
shocked by the attack.