Two hotels attacked in central Baghdad
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Jones of the US 1st Armoured Division said two rockets had hit the Burj al-Hayat Hotel in central Baghdad but nobody was wounded.
Two holes were blown in the side of the hotel. Witnesses said the roof of the nearby Rimal Hotel was also hit by a blast but there was no major damage.
Colonel Jones said the rockets were probably aimed at the headquarters of the US-led administration on the west bank of the Tigris river.
At least seven civilians were killed in two bomb and gun attacks in Iraq earlier yesterday, doubling the death toll in a bloody 24 hours as US forces prepared to mark the first anniversary of their invasion.
A spokesman for the British military in Basra said four Iraqis were killed in an explosion at the southern city’s Mirbad Hotel.
The attack came less than a day after a suicide car bomber killed seven people, including a British engineer, at a hotel in Baghdad on Wednesday.
US officials blamed that attack on Muslim militants, possibly linked to al-Qaida.
Three employees of a US- funded television station were shot dead at Baquba, north-east of the capital, and two Iraqis, including a child, died in fighting between guerrillas and US troops in another restive town, Falluja. Witnesses later saw a US helicopter come down near Falluja, east of Baghdad.
On Wednesday, two US soldiers had also been killed in separate mortar attacks.
Troops are on alert for an increase in violence ahead of tomorrow’s anniversary of the US-led invasion on March 20 last year which toppled Saddam Hussein.
Basra, in the Shi’ite Muslim south long oppressed under Saddam Hussein, has seen fewer attacks than Baghdad and Sunni areas like Falluja and Baquba near the capital.
The hotel had been regularly used for news briefings by the British military and by the civilian administration of Iraq’s second city.
A spokesman for the British military said it was not clear if a car bomb or explosives planted in the street caused the blast. Locals said an angry crowd beat to death a man suspected of the attack.
Eight US soldiers were wounded in a mortar attack in Falluja yesterday, the US Army said. Witnesses said a child was one of two Iraqis killed in the gunfight that followed.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US army in Iraq, said the battle erupted as US soldiers were meeting local administrators in municipal offices in the flashpoint city.
