Rocket narrowly misses Baghdad Sheridan

A US soldier said a blast in central Baghdad tonight was caused by a rocket-propelled grenade that narrowly missed the Sheraton Ishtar Hotel.

At the same time, a US army spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast.

“That was us,” Captain Jason Beck of the US Army’s 1st Armoured Division, the unit that controls Baghdad, said.

Guests at the Sheraton, called by satellite telephone, said they were fine.

The firefight which followed the blast appeared to come from some distance behind the heavily barricaded hotel, a haven for Westerners.

The 1st Armoured Division unleashed a barrage further from central Baghdad before dawn today, which it said was aimed at anti-American insurgents.