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Iraq Transition

Bomb spurs Australian embassy move


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SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Australia has relocated its diplomatic staff in Iraq to inside a U.S. military base in Baghdad after the embassy was attacked by a suicide bomber earlier this month.

The three-person mission will stay at Camp Victory until new accommodation is found inside the highly fortified "green zone" in Baghdad.

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told media the embassy staff had been moved after the January 19 car-bomb attack appeared to have been a targeted strike on Australia's presence in Iraq.

Two Iraqis were killed and two Australian soldiers were slightly injured in the attack on the building which was located in a residential Baghdad suburb.

Camp Victory is a major U.S. military facility close to Baghdad International Airport and is the headquarters of both the U.S. and Australian military in Iraq.

Downer said it could take up to six months for permanent alternative accommodation for the diplomatic mission to be established.

Downer said the threat against Australians in Iraq remained exceptionally high.

"The terrorists in Iraq are obviously targeting two categories of people: ordinary Iraqis who want democracy and freedom in their own country and secondly, those in the international force who are supporting them," Downer said in a news conference in London Sunday.

But Downer later told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio that he did not think the level of danger to Australians in Iraq was growing. "I don't think there is a growing danger. I just think the danger is there, of course, as it has been for some time," he said.

Australia's Baghdad mission has been guarded by a special security force of 120 troops who form part of the nation's 900-strong military contingent in Iraq.


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