BAGHDAD (AP) – Few Iraqi lawmakers managed to attend a rare emergency legislative session Friday, a day after a suicide bomber ripped through their cafeteria in a brazen attack inside Baghdad’s American-guarded Green Zone.

Both Iraqi and American officials Friday revised down their estimates of those killed in the suicide bombing, which penetrated several layers of security. America issued a statement saying one civilian was killed.

But Iraqi parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani opened Friday’s session by asking members of recite verses from the Quran to mourn the death of a “hero, the parliament member Mohammed Awad.” Awad, a Sunni, was a member of the moderate National Dialogue Front. Party leader Saleh al-Mutlaq also confirmed his death, and said a female lawmaker from the same list was wounded.

Friday’s emergency meeting had been scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., but began nearly 1.5 hours late – apparently because of low turnout and increased security measures. Many lawmakers were unable to reach the parliament building, whose interior was still in shambles Friday, because of a weekly driving ban on the Muslim day of rest.

“Very few parliament members showed up because of the curfew,” said Mohammed Abu Bakr, head of the parliament’s media office. “Also the MPs’ turnout is very low today because most of them are visiting those who were wounded by the blast,” he said.

Parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani called for the session – a rare occurrence on Friday – to “defy terrorism,” state television quoted him as saying.

State-run Iraqiya television’s transmission was draped Friday in a black mourning banner. Regular programming aired, but the screen had a black stripe across the upper left hand corner.

Several TV channels replayed images Friday of the moment of the attack and the minutes following: a flash and an orange ball of fire causing Jalaluddin al-Saghir, a startled parliament member who was being interviewed, to duck. Smoke and dust billowed through the area, and confused and frightened lawmakers and others could be heard screaming for help. Al-Saghir escaped injury.

But a woman was shown kneeling over what appeared to be a wounded or dead man near a table and chairs. The camera then focused on a bloody, severed leg – apparently that of the suicide bomber.

The American military said Friday that one Iraqi civilian was killed and 22 injured in the attack. The night before, U.S. military spokesman Major General William Caldwell had said eight people died.

“Yesterday’s reports were based on initial reports from the scene. During evacuation operations, emergency responders and eyewitnesses reported that casualties were being evacuated in multiple directions,” the statement said.

The stunning breach of security at parliament – along with another bombing the same day that destroyed a historic bridge across the mighty Tigris river and killed at least 11 people – struck a blow to a two-month-old American-Iraqi effort to pacify the capital. Violence was down slightly in Baghdad, but the effort to put thousands of additional troops on the streets has failed to halt spectacular attacks like Thursday’s.

Mr. Abu Bakr said cleanup inside the parliament building had not yet begun, because investigators were still combing through the debris for clues as to who was behind the attack and how they penetrated the tightest security in Baghdad – the heavily fortified Green Zone compound, which houses the U.S. Embassy as well as offices of the Iraqi government.

“The cafeteria is still not clean. There is still flesh of the bomber on the floor,” he said. “Broken glass has not bee removed, and the meeting hall is still full of dust.”

Security officials at parliament, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said they believed the cafeteria bomber was a bodyguard of a Sunni lawmaker who was not among the casualties.

General Caldwell said the attack bore the trademarks of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
>[?”We don’t know at this point who it was. We do know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominantly by Al Qaeda,” he said.

American forces captured 14 suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq members in raids early Friday, the military said in a statement.

It would be the second time in less than a month that a bodyguard wearing a suicide vest attacked a Sunni official. On March 23 a member of Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie’s security detail exploded his suicide vest and seriously wounded al-Zubaie, the highest-ranking Sunni in the Iraqi government.

On Friday, police said 11 civilians had been killed in the bridge bombing a day earlier. Seven were killed in the explosion by a powerful suicide truck bomb, and four perished when their cars plummeted into the river below, police said. At least 39 people were injured, including three Iraqi soldiers. Two civilians are still missing, they said.

A roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded four others in southern Baghdad on Friday, police said. A civilian was also wounded.