August 23, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-us-Sani 24, 1424

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 22: US investigators probing the suicide bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad are looking into the possibility that the perpetrators were assisted by Iraqi security guards employed by the United Nations, says the The New York Times.

The paper said in a report that the guards at the compound were agents of the Iraqi secret services, to whom they had reported on UN activities before the war. The UN continued to employ them after the war, the report said, quoting a senior American official in Baghdad.

“We believe the UN’s security was seriously compromised,” the official told The Times. “We have serious concerns about the placement of the vehicle,” a truck bomb, and the timing of the attack, he was quoted as saying.

In New York, a UN official reacted skeptically to the assertions. “All of us are trying to get to the bottom of this,” said Fred Eckhard, spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan.

“In fact, the secretary general is sending his security coordinator to Baghdad ... to investigate the bombing. But the task is not made easier by the conspiracy theories circulating. We’ll have to separate as best we can fact from speculation.”