Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/suicide-bomber-hits-iraqs-heavily-fortified-green-zone Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript A suicide bomber on Thursday killed at least eight people, including two lawmakers, at the Iraqi parliament in the heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad. Experts discuss security there and how the attack could have happened. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. MARGARET WARNER: The blast ripped through the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament building with devastating and deadly force. Stunned workers were filmed running for the exits, minutes after the blast.Among the dead, two Sunni and one Shiite lawmaker.Today's attack was not the first inside what is supposed to be Iraq's most secure area, but it was the deadliest in two-and-a-half years. U.S. Major General William Caldwell spoke to reporters shortly after the blast. MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, U.S. Army: What we know right now is that, inside the parliamentary building on the second floor in the cafeteria, sometime this afternoon, about 2:30, it appears now from the eyewitness accounts there was a suicide vest. MARGARET WARNER: Time magazine reported that al-Qaida had claimed responsibility, but Caldwell did not confirm that. MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL: We don't at this point have any indications who it is, but clearly, we're looking at it closely. We do know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominantly by al-Qaida, and obviously we'll go to great detail to look at this one. MARGARET WARNER: The heavily fortified Green Zone covers about four square miles in the heart of Baghdad. Now known officially as the International Zone, it's home to many Iraqi government agencies and diplomatic missions, including the Iraqi parliament in the north and the U.S. embassy by the Tigris River. Five thousand Iraqis also live inside the zone.The area is protected by eight miles of barrier fences and checkpoints guarded by both Iraqi and American forces. It's where most foreign officials start and end their visits to Baghdad.But the zone has not been impenetrable from inside or outside attack. The most deadly one previously came in October 2004, when insurgents detonated explosives at a popular cafe and market, killing six. More recently, a rocket attack last month killed two Americans, a soldier and a contractor.U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon personally experienced the danger there three weeks ago, as he was concluding a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. That mortar shell shot into the zone landed 80 yards from Maliki's house; it exploded just seconds after the secretary-general had praised security improvements on the ground in Iraq.