DUBAI, Jan 4: The United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade last night, causing minor damage and no casualties, regional news agencies said today.The Iraqi Government condemned the attack, the second on a UN building in the city in three months, the reports said.
"Iraq condemned the attack against the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Baghdad. Such an incident can only be an act of hostile parties who aim at destroying relations between Iraq and UNSCOM", the reports quoted an Iraqi spokesman as saying.
The building houses the offices of UNSCOM as well as humanitarian agencies and the UN food distribution programme.
UNSCOM is charged with the task of dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction under the terms of UN Security Council resolutions adopted after Iraq's August, 1990, invasion and seven-month occupation of Kuwait.
"There was an anti-tank projectile without an explosive head that was fired at our building", a UN official said.
"No one was injured and
damage was minimal," the UN spokesman said.
According to the reports, the incident took place at 2230 hours local time.
They said the grenade hit a wall and fragments shattered a window in the building's cafetaria, which was closed at the time.
No group had claimed responsibility for the attack, which came at a time when Iraq and UNSCOM are locked in a standoff over inspections of "presidential sites".
Iraq says such sites, which include palaces used by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, were off-limits to the UN inspectors.
In early October, gunmen had hurled grenades and fired bullets at the World Health Organisation offices in the complex, reports from Baghdad added.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
