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 and Niamah al-Mayahi of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance bloc. A female 
 lawmaker of the Sunni National Dialogue Front was wounded, according to her 
 party leader. 
  
 Mohammed Abu Bakr, who heads the parliament's media department, and other 
 lawmakers said they saw the suspected bomber's body amid the ghastly scene. 
  
 "I saw two legs in the middle of the cafeteria and none of those killed or 
 wounded lost their legs -- which means they must be the legs of the suicide 
 attacker," he said. 
  
 Earlier in the day, security officials used dogs to check people entering 
 the building in a rare precaution -- apparently concerned that an attack 
 might take place. 
  
 A security scanner for pedestrians at the entrance to the Green Zone near 
 the parliament building was not working, and people were searched only by 
 hand and had to pass through metal detectors, Abu Bakr said. 
  
 The brazen bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can 
 penetrate even the most secure locations. Masses of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers 
 are on the streets in the ninth week of a security crackdown in the capital, 
 and security measures inside the Green Zone have been significantly 
 hardened. 
  
 The U.S. military reported April 1 that two suicide vests were found in the 
 Green Zone, also home to the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government. A rocket 
 attack last month killed two Americans, a soldier and a contractor. A few 
 days earlier, a rocket hit within 100 yards of a building where U.N. 
 Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was holding a news conference. No one was 
 hurt. 
  
 Ban said Thursday's attack "attempted to undermine one of the country's 
 sovereign institutions," and he urged Iraqis to come together in unity to 
 work for peace, said U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe. 
  
 Khalaf al-Ilyan, one of three leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said 
 the attack "underlines the failure of the government's security plan." 
  
 "The plan is 100 percent a failure. It's a complete flop. The explosion 
 means that instability and lack of security has reached the Green Zone, 
 which the government boasts is heavily fortified," said al-Ilyan, who is in 
 Jordan recovering from knee surgery. 
  
 Hadi al-Amiri, head of the parliament's security and defense committee, said 
 the blast shook the building just after legislators ended their main meeting 
 and broke into smaller committees. 
  
 "A few brothers (fellow lawmakers) happened to be in the cafeteria at the 
 time of the explosion," al-Amiri told Al-Arabiya television. "But had they 
 been able to place this bomb inside the meeting hall, it would have been a 
 catastrophe." 
  
 Hours after the bombing, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh and other Iraqi 
 officials met with the commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. David 
 Petraeus, and decided to put the Interior Ministry in charge of security at 
 parliament, al-Dabbagh said. The building was previously guarded by a 
 private security company, he said. 
  
 Petraeus also said the U.S. military extended condolences to those 
 "martyred" in the bombing. 
  
 New U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker called the attack a "heinous act of 
 terrorism." 
  
 "This cowardly attack is an attempt to undermine the efforts of all who are 
 working to build a peaceful, unified, and stable Iraq. It will not succeed," 
 he said. 
  
 Attacks in the Green Zone are rare. The worst previous known assault 
 occurred Oct. 14, 2004, when a blast at a market and a popular cafe killed 
 six people -- the first bombing in the sprawling region. 
  
 On Nov. 25, 2004, a mortar attack inside the zone killed four employees of a 
 British security firm and wounded at least 12. On Jan. 29, 2005, insurgents 
 hit the U.S. Embassy compound with a rocket, killing two Americans -- a 
 civilian and a sailor -- on the eve of landmark elections. Four other 
 Americans were wounded. 
  
 In addition to killing 10 people, Thursday's bombing of the al-Sarafiya 
 bridge wounded 26, hospital officials said, and police were trying to rescue 
 as many as 20 people whose cars plummeted off the span. 
  
 Waves lapped against twisted girders as patrol boats searched for survivors 
 and U.S. helicopters flew overhead. Scuba divers donned flippers and waded 
 in from the riverbanks. 
  
 Farhan al-Sudani, a 34-year-old Shiite businessman who lives near the 
 bridge, said the blast woke him at dawn. 
  
 "A huge explosion shook our house and I thought it would demolish our house. 
 Me and my wife jumped immediately from our bed, grabbed our three kids and 
 took them outside," he said. 
  
 The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods -- 
 Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area. 
  
 Police blamed the attack on a suicide truck bomber. AP Television News video 
 showed the bridge broken in two places -- perhaps the result of two blasts. 
  
 The al-Sarafiya bridge is believed to be at least 75 years old, built by the 
 British in the early part of the 20th century. 
  
 "It is one of Baghdad's monuments. This is really damaging for Iraq. We are 
 losing a lot of our history every day," said Ahmed Abdul-Karim, who lives 
 nearby. 
  
 Before the bridge was destroyed, nine spans over the Tigris linked western 
 and eastern Baghdad. 
  
 The river now serves as a de facto dividing line between the mostly Shiite 
 east and the largely Sunni west of the city, a reality of more than a year 
 of sectarian fighting that has forced Sunnis to flee neighborhoods where 
 they were a minority and likewise for Shiites. 
  
 Baghdad's neighborhoods had been very mixed before the war but hundreds of 
 thousands of people have been displaced since then as militants from both 
 Muslim sects have sought to cleanse their neighborhoods of rivals. 
  
 There have been unconfirmed reports for months that Sunni insurgents and 
 al-Qaida in Iraq were planning a campaign to blow up the bridges. 
  
 Also Thursday, the U.S. military said its troops killed two suspected 
 insurgents and captured 17 in raids across the country. 
  
 [Associated Press Writer Lauren Frayer contributed to this report.] 
  
  
 Photo Caption: 
  
 This photo taken from Alhurra TV via AP Television News shows victims of an 
 explosion in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in Baghdad's Green Zone in 
 Iraq, Thursday April 12, 2007. A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up 
 in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria Thursday, killing at least eight people 
 and wounding dozens in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily 
 fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone. Television footage showed scenes of 
 pandemonium inside the building at the moment of the attack. A Muslim imam 
 being interviewed on Alhurra television ducked for cover, as a hallway 
 filled with smoke. People can be heard screaming out one another's names. 
 One man was slumped over, motionless, covered in dust. (AP Photo/Alhurra TV 
 via AP Television News) 
  
 Copyright € 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 
  
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