World

Deadly Blasts Rock Baghdad Hotel

October 24, 2005 / 7:46 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Three massive vehicle bombs exploded Monday near the Palestine Hotel, home to many foreign journalists, killing at least 20 people and injuring at least 40 others.

Television 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-Rubaei, said the attack, which appeared well planned was a "very clear" effort to take over the hotel and take foreign and Arab journalists hostage.

A cement-mixer packed with explosives blew a hole in the concrete blast wall protecting the hotel. Insurgents exploded two other car bombs nearby.

None of the dead were believed to have been inside the hotel. Assistant Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal said those killed included Iraqi police and civilians.

Video taken outside the Palestine Hotel clearly shows the cement-mixer truck approaching and trying to make its way into the compound just after a car bomb exploded nearby. It backs up and tries repeatedly to get through what looks like a barbed wire barrier before detonating in a massive explosion, CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick reports.

The second bomb exploded not far from where the cement mixer was detonated near a police post on Firdous Square, where an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled from its pedestal after U.S. troops captured the Iraqi capital on April 9, 2003.

The third bomb went off behind the 14th Ramadan Mosque, which stands on the square across from the hotel.

"Three cars came from three different roads, in succession to create security breaches for terrorists. They were armed with RPG and light arms," Rubaei said.

The security adviser said at least 40 people were injured, most of them passersby. Another official, Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Kamal, said four or five Iraqi police were among the dead.

Television news video showed the cement mixer exploding in a huge ball of flame. Police opened fire on the truck as it appeared to be driving at the blast wall surrounding the hotel compound. The explosion blew a hole in the protective wall.

McCormick reports that the first blasts sent smoke into the sky that could be seen from across the city. The explosions were also nearby the Sheraton hotel and a mosque. Many foreign journalists stay in and sometimes work out of the Palestine and Sheraton.

The U.S. military said no U.S. troops were injured in the attacks.

U.S. soldiers maintain a presence inside the hotel compound. Afterward they increased their numbers on the perimeter of the 5-acre compound, which also includes the Sheraton Hotel.

Iraqi security officials said the explosions occurred two minutes apart, not long before Muslims marking Ramadan were preparing to break their day-long fast.

An AP photographer at a checkpoint at the northwest corner of the hotel said at least 3 fellow photographers from other media were injured and taken away by ambulance. Three AP television personnel inside the hotel sustained minor injuries.

The Associated Press counted six wounded inside the hotel, which was last hit in an insurgent rocket attack on Oct. 7, 2004.

There was considerable damage to the windows and rooms on the south side of the 19-story hotel. TV pictures showed a huge cloud of smoke rising from the scene and debris falling from the building.

After the bombing, Iraqi forces opened up with heavy automatic weapons fire, apparently firing at random. There was no sign of a further assault on the hotel.

Many journalists had to evacuate their rooms and offices in the hotel and take refuge in the corridor.

Inside the hotel, light fixtures were blown down, pictures were blasted off the walls and windows were shattered. In the lobby, colleagues gave medical attention to a man with blood dripping down the side of his head. The reception desk sign hung loosely beside him.

In related developments:

A suicide car bomber killed two Iraqis and wounded five others in an attack on a police patrol in Baghdad on Monday. The car, which was located in the northeastern neighborhood of Shaab, was apparently detonated by remote control. The Shaab neighborhood is the same area where insurgents kidnapped and murdered a defense lawyer in Saddam Hussein's trial last week.

In another development, the U.S. military on Sunday confirmed that four American contract workers were killed and two wounded in Iraq last month when their convoy got lost.

On Monday an unknown gunmen shot dead an Iraqi official in Saydieyeh neighborhood, in southwest Baghdad. The victim was identified as Mohammed Ali Nu'ma, Secretary of Director of al-Mansour Municipality.

In Fallujah, west of Baghdad, an insurgent blew up his car next to a U.S. humvee on Sunday night. A vehicle could be seen engulfed in flames.

In Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded at 8:30 a.m. near a car carrying Ibrahim Zangana, a senior member of Iraq's Kurdish Democratic Party, seriously wounding him and killing one of his bodyguards, said Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir, the commander of Kirkuk's police force.

Insurgents opened fire on an Iraqi army checkpoint in western Baghdad, killing a soldier and a girl who was standing in front of her nearby house, said police 1st. Lt. Thaeir Mahmod.

Insurgents also fired mortar rounds that set fire to an oil pipeline in northern Iraq, wounding two Iraqi soldiers, said soldier Hussein Ghadban Al Ubaidi. The pipeline is one of many that link an oil field in Kirkuk to Iraq's largest oil refinery in Beiji. Such attacks in the north are common.

On Sunday, an investigative judges took testimony from the first witness in the Saddam Hussein mass murder trial regarding the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail. The judges went to a military hospital to take the deposition from Wadah Ismail al-Sheik, a cancer patient who was director of the investigation department at Saddam's feared Mukhabarat intelligence agency at the time of the Dujail massacre. Al-Sheik is too sick to appear in court, and officials did not want to wait until the trial resumes Nov. 28 to get his testimony.

The corpses of eight Iraqis — five men and three women — were found in three different areas of Baghdad on Monday, police said. All of them apparently had been kidnapped, tied up or handcuffed, and shot to death.

The toll among American service members in the Iraq war was approaching 2,000 dead. At least 1,996 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.