"LETS TAKE THIS OUT IN THE DESERT"

A suicide bomber driving a white Toyota pickup truck pulled up to a U.S. checkpoint at the gates of the U.S.-led coalition headquarters Sunday and detonated an estimated 1,000 pounds of explosives, killing at least 23 Iraqis and wounding more than 60 people, according to U.S. military officials.

Military officials said among the wounded were three U.S. soldiers and three American contract workers...

Each morning, Iraqi civilians line up outside the entrance to the Green Zone, headquarters for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Soldiers call the entrance Assassin’s Gate or MOAC — the Mother of All Checkpoints — because of the dangers they face.

The truck was in line to be checked for bombs when the explosives detonated.

Investigators believe the driver was attempting to take the device inside the Green Zone, according to Col. Ralph Baker, commander of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. Baker’s troops, deployed from Baumholder, Germany, are responsible for security in the area...

The gate is popular for demonstrators and the press, Baker said, adding that a bomb explosion there would gain international attention. He also said the fact that the insurgents could not breach the Green Zone spoke highly of the military’s security.

Attacks against troops had decreased over the past six months, Baker said.

“You’re going to continue to see anomalies like car bombs that occur by what I believe are terrorist forces hoping to discredit the reforms and progress taking place,” Baker said.

But the explosion clearly frustrated soldiers who saw innocent civilians killed.

Staff Sgt. Robert Jones, 37, of Fayetteville, N.C, challenged terrorists to take the fight out of the city.

“Here’s an open invitation,” Jones said. “Let’s take this out in the desert.”