IRAQ: Remote control aid

 Local and foreign humanitarian organizations were attacked by militants - with assassinations, kidnappings, bombs and car bombs.

The first of these was in August 2003 when a suicide bomber drove a large truck packed with explosives into the UN headquarters in eastern Baghdad, killing at least 23 people, including UN senior representative Sergio Vieira de Mello.

This forced the UN mission to run all its operations from neighbouring Jordan for a few years. Later it returned to Baghdad - but to the fortified Green Zone where key Iraqi government offices and the US and UK embassies are located.

Also in 2003 a suicide car bomber attacked the main office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Baghdad killing 12 people, including two ICRC employees. ICRC withdrew its entire mission to Amman, Jordan.

A high-profile kidnapping and murder of a British aid worker took place in 2004 when militants seized Irish-born 59-year-old Margaret Hassan as she went to work in Baghdad. Hassan, who was married to an Iraqi and had lived for 30 years in Iraq, served as the country director of CARE International.

Nearly two years later, gunmen disguised in Iraqi army uniforms burst into the Iraqi Red Crescent Society offices in western Baghdad and kidnapped 25 employees and volunteers. Six were later released while the others were either killed or are still missing.

Despite a decline in violence since late 2007, NGOs have not rushed to return: “It is still too early to resume our previous activities and reopen all eight offices,” GS said.