A suicide car bomber killed at least six Iraqis in an attack on a Baghdad hotel used by US officials yesterday, shaking buildings blocks away with the force of the blast, the US military said.
Eyewitnesses said they saw a car crash through the security barrier at the Baghdad Hotel and explode. The heavily fortified hotel is widely thought to be used by members of the CIA, officials of the US-led coalition and their Iraqi partners in the Governing Council as well as US contractors.
US military spokesman Colonel Peter Mansoor said no Americans had died. An Iraqi policeman at the scene earlier said at least 10 people had been killed.
At a nearby hospital, medics treated 19 people injured in the blast, many seriously. Three were civilians, six police and 10 security guards.
Mansoor said one American soldier was slightly injured.
Thick black smoke poured into the sky. Distraught Iraqis waited to see what had happened to relatives working at the hotel.
"I saw limbs and pieces of flesh everywhere," security guard Kahin Hussein said. "The US soldiers were picking them up off the floor."
Sirens wailed as ambulances and fire engines rushed to the scene. The bomb, which exploded 100m from the hotel, blew a crater 3m by 3m into the road.
A concrete bomb wall protecting the hotel was blown over by the force of the blast, which happened at about 12:45pm. The lower floor of the building next door was on fire.
"I was driving beside the hotel when a white car suddenly crashed through the security barrier and exploded," Iraqi eyewitness Sabah Ghulam said.
One witness said security guards opened fire on a car. A second car then drove up and exploded.
"People dived onto the ground, and I saw people dying on the pavement around me," Safa Adil said. "Iraq has just become a place of death, hatred and explosions."
US helicopters circled overhead minutes after the blast, obscured by the thick smoke. Soldiers and plain-clothed officials in US flak jackets carrying AK-47 rifles swarmed the street outside the hotel.
Dozens of Iraqi police raced to the scene. Shop windows all along the street were shattered.
Mansoor said most of the injured were on the street outside, not inside the hotel. He said the FBI, US Army and Iraqi police were investigating.
The attack was the latest in a series aimed at Western targets in Iraq, which the US blames on guerrillas resisting the American-led occupation. Iraqis seen as cooperating with the administration have also been targeted.
A few hours later, a roadside bomb exploded outside a sprawling US base in former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, wounding three soldiers, one seriously, an army spokesman said.
The explosives were detonated just outside a gate at the headquarters for Task Force Ironhorse as two US Humvee vehicles were passing, said First Lieutenant Don Calderwood, a spokesman for the 1st Brigade, 22nd Infantry Battalion.
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