Iraq bombings leave 23 dead
Foreign Desk Report

BAGHDAD—Three massive vehicle bombs exploded Monday near the Palestine Hotel, home to many Western journalists, killing at least 23 people. Dramatic TV pictures showed one of the bombers driving a cement truck through the concrete blast walls that guard the hotel, then blowing up his vehicle.
Iraq’s national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, said the attack — which appeared well-planned — was a “very clear” effort to take over the hotel and seize journalists as hostages.
One of the car bombs exploded near the police position on the northeast side of Firdous Square, where a statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in April 2003 shortly after the fall of Baghdad, and more than 100 yards east of the hotel. Security officials said a third bomb struck the area around the same time. All three were believed to be suicide attacks.
“Three cars came from three different roads in succession to create security breaches for terrorists,” al-Rubaie told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, adding that they were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and light arms.
“The plan was very clear to us, which was to take security control over the two hotels, and to take the foreign and Arab journalists as hostages to use them as a bargain”.
The U.S. military said no U.S. troops were injured. It counted 10 dead Iraqis.
The security adviser said at least 40 people were injured, most of them passers-by. Another official, Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Kamal, said four or five Iraqi police were among the dead.
APTN footage showed that one of three vehicle bombers had penetrated the concrete blast walls surrounding the hotel compound before exploding.
The cement mixer exploded in a huge ball of flame and a cloud of smoke.
Iraqi security officials said the blasts occurred two minutes apart, not long before Muslims marking the Islamic holy month of Ramadan were preparing to break their daylong fast. Shortly before the explosion, a truck came under fire nearby, according to APTN.
The attacks caused heavy damage to the south side of the 19-story Palestine Hotel, forcing journalists, including those from AP, Fox News and the U.S. government-funded Alhurra TV station to take refuge in the corridor. Fox and Alhurra said their employees were safe.
Inside, light fixtures were blown out, pictures were blasted off the walls and windows were shattered.
Moments before the second blast, journalists, photographers and technicians were walking up and down hazy corridors in a state of confusion, urging each other to remain calm, put on flak jackets, and to stay away from windows. Thicker clouds of smoke filled the far end of one hallway, with many people coughing and waving their hands.
The second explosion shook the building momentarily. Confusion and panic again set in, with those inside debating whether to exit, but all eventually deciding to stay in the corridor and sit propped against walls, most in flak jackets. Sounds resembling gunshots could be heard outside.
Strips of floorboards were strewn about and air vents were blown in.
An AP photographer at a checkpoint at the northwest corner of the hotel said at least three fellow photographers from other media were injured and taken away by ambulance. Three APTN personnel inside the hotel suffered minor injuries.
The AP counted six wounded inside the hotel, which was last hit in an insurgent rocket attack on Oct. 7, 2004.
Capt. Patricia Brewer, a U.S. military spokeswoman in Baghdad, said they could hear the blasts from their headquarters. A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, said the U.S. military sent in a quick reaction force to the site to assist the police.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, suspected insurgents opened fire at two civilian cars, killing three municipal workers and a passer-by, said police Capt. Talib Thamir amid a surge of violence over the last two days that has killed dozens.
The toll among American service members killed in the Iraq war also neared 2,000 dead, with the announcement of a Marine killed Sunday during fighting in western Iraq.
The exploding cement truck — caught in APTN footage — blew a hole in a 12-foot concrete wall that separates the hotel from the square. U.S. soldiers maintain a presence inside the five-acre hotel compound, which includes the Sheraton.
After the bombing, Iraqi forces opened up with heavy automatic weapons fire, apparently at random. There was no sign of a further assault on the hotel.
Maj. Abbas Mohammed Suleiman said earlier that the hotel compound was hit by rockets and car bombs.
The hotel has been attacked several times since the war started in March 2003. On April 8, 2003 — the day before Saddam’s regime fell — U.S. tank fire killed two TV cameramen — a Spaniard and a Ukrainian — at the hotel.
Concrete barriers topped with barbed wire guard the Palestine and the nearby Sheraton, which is also home to foreigners.