Posted on 10/24/2005 11:47:30 AM PDT by Dog
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three massive vehicle bombs exploded Monday near the Palestine Hotel, home to many Western journalists, killing at least 20 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.
In other violence:
_ The military said the Marine who was killed had been assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) and was hit by small arms fire in Ramadi. The death raised to at least 1,997 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
_ A suicide car bomber killed two Iraqis and wounded five Monday in an attack on a police patrol in the northeastern Baghdad neighborhood of Shaab, where insurgents had kidnapped and murdered a defense lawyer in Saddam's trial last week, said police Lt. Malik Sultan.
_ Insurgents also 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.
_ A drive-by shooting killed one policeman and two others were wounded by a roadside bomb, authorities said.
_ Another roadside bomb exploded near a car carrying Ibrahim Zangana, a senior member of Iraq's Kurdish Democratic Party, seriously wounding him and killing one of his bodyguards, in Kirkuk, said Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir.
_ A drive-by shooting in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, killed a policeman.
_ The corpses of the eight Iraqis _ five men and three women _ also 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.
Is a Spanish judge going to issue arrest warrants for the terrorists?
But why would they attack and kidnap their best allies?
}:-)4
The bombers failed in their mission. Unfortunately, repeated failure doesn't seem to deter these guys from trying again.
The key phrase....THEY WERE BEAT BACK BY THE IRAQS....they didn't get inside the hotel...they didn't breach the perimeter.
I guess we know why reporters are loathe to leave their hotel to report on our successes.
Because they realize that their best allies are Chicken Littles who, if attacked, will shriek defeat to all in their hearing.
Pretty good strategy, if you ask me.
It's interesting that the article didn't follow up on the "apparent hostage-taking attempt" angle, though. Sounds to me like the Iraqi forces weren't really "firing at random" after all, but rather at the bad guys who were attempting to exploit the breach.
"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."
No one would want them back.
It's like they wanted to kill their fan club.
Don't you just love them using this introductin instead of "In other news" or if they wanted be fair and report positive events, "In other developments". Great AP?MSM bias as usual!
Like Sergeant MacClane said:
Welcome to the party Pal!!
But .. the media loves the terrorists!
What the media does not understand - the terrorists don't care who you are - if you're not one of them - YOU'RE DEAD!
Except that, if they had been outside the hotel reporting on the successes, they would have been safer. Go figure.
Just want to be perfectly clear: even though they ed journalists, neither I nor anyone associated with FR had anything to do with it.
Just want to be perfectly clear: even though they ed journalists, neither I nor anyone associated with FR had anything to do with it.
I'd say this is a case of the Terrorists fighting amongst themselves.
Which is why we are busy killing as many as we can, where ever we can as we do any rabid animal. In a world, that has suitcase nukes and plague in a bottle, we simply cannot coexist with this level of aggressive, religious based, fanaticism.
OK, people, let's get proactive about this thing. I say we put together a fund to ransom captive journalists in Iraq.
Put me down for a dime.
Why would these dolts go after journalists? If it weren't for the constant stilted media bias in their favor, they'd have withered away a year ago. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
If just one leftist meida hack was killed, I'd call that a victory for our side. These guys are really confused.
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