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| Monday, 13 October 2003 |
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Car bomb kills at least 10 at Baghdad hotel BAGHDAD, Sunday (Reuters) A powerful car bomb killed at least 10 people outside a central Baghdad hotel used by U.S. officials on Sunday, injuring many and filling the air with dust and thick black smoke, police said. Eyewitnesses said they saw a car crash through the security barrier at the Baghdad Hotel and explode. The hotel is widely thought to be used by members of the CIA, officials of the U.S. -led coalition and their Iraqi partners in the Governing Council as well as U.S. contractors. A policeman at the scene said at least ten people had been killed. Hotel employees said five or six bodies lay in the hotel courtyard. At a nearby hospital, a Reuters photographer saw a dozen wounded, many seriously. Several were Iraqi policemen. It was not immediately clear whether there were any U.S. casualties. Sirens wailed as ambulances and fire engines rushed to the scene. The bomb blew a crater three metres (yards) by three metres into the road. A concrete bomb wall protecting the hotel was blown over by the force of the blast. 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." U.S. helicopters circled overhead minutes after the blast, obscured by the thick smoke. Dozens of Iraqi police raced to the scene. Shop windows all along the street were shattered and buildings were shaken several blocks away. Guests were seen leaving the hotel carrying suitcases. They were uninjured but said their rooms had been destroyed. Soldiers and plain-clothes officials in U.S. flak jackets carrying AK-47 rifles swarmed the street outside the hotel. The attack was the latest in a series aimed at Western targets in Iraq, which the U.S. blames on guerrillas resisting the American.-led occupation. Iraqis seen as cooperating with the administration have also been attacked. On Thursday, two suicide bombers crashed their car through the gates of a police station in northeast Baghdad, killing at least eight other Iraqis. |
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