A terror attack on a five-storey Baghdad hotel which left 17 people dead was a suicide bombing and may have hit the wrong target, the US military said today.

A car bomb exploded outside the main gate to the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition today, killing 23 people, including two Americans who may have been civilian contractors, U.S. officials said.

SADDAM HUSSEIN may not be talking freely to his US interrogators but he has already provided information that led to the arrest of several top regime figures in Baghdad, a US general said yesterday.

Saddam Hussein’s capture is already reaping dividends for the occupation forces, providing intelligence that led to the capture of several top regime figures, and uncovered rebel cells in the Baghdad, a US general said today.

A US general said the one attacker captured in the bombings that killed over 40 people in Baghdad yesterday had a Syrian passport, fuelling suspicions that foreign fighters were behind a rising tide of violence.

The feared Ramadan rampage was launched in Baghdad today but on a scale that the American occupiers had not expected and not seen since major combat was declared over in May.

A suicide bomber rammed an ambulance packed with explosives into security barriers outside the Iraqi offices of the international Red Cross today, killing about 10 people, an American general said.