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CNN SHOWDOWN: IRAQ
15 Dead in Haifa Bus Bombing
Aired March 5, 2003 - 11:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's take a closer look at that bombing in northern Israel that killed at least 15 people earlier today. The bomb ripped apart a bus in the northern city of Haifa.
CNN's Jerrold Kessel is standing by. He is on the scene. He's joining us now live with details -- Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, just behind me, stricken bus No. 37, that's the bus that just after 2:00 this afternoon was hit by the suicide bomber as it made its way up from the sea shore down here in Haifa, up this main boulevard, and is now being towed away. The bus is about to be towed away after the cleanup inside the bus, but you can see the force of the explosion, Wolf, in that -- inside the bus, completely ripping apart all parts inside the bus. The roof -- parts of the roof were splattered around some 50 yards away from the site here, and the top of the roof catapulted right up over to the front, and 15 people were killed, three of those died on their way to hospital, some 40 people were wounded.
There on the site, that is at the bus stop, the final cleanup. The people in those white and green luminous jackets, they're both police experts and also members of that special detail of religious -- a detail of people who pick up parts of body, bits of skin, blood, anything that needs to be buried according to Jewish law with the bodies themselves. The wounded were taken away very, very quickly to a hospital, but both counting and removing the dead took a little bit longer -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Jerrold, very briefly, has anyone claimed responsibility for this attack yet? And I understand there were a lot of students from Haifa University aboard that bus.
KESSEL: No, no claim of responsibility at this stage, and that's fairly strange that there hasn't been a claim of responsibility, and indeed, this bus 37 was headed -- its final terminus was Haifa University, down this main road, up the hill on Mount Carmel, and many of those aboard were both high school pupils and college students heading to their studies -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Jerrold Kessel with the grim news from Haifa. Jerrold, thanks very much for that report. We'll continue to check up with you periodically for more information.
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