At least 11 dead as bombs target Baghdad hotels

Three co-ordinated bomb blasts struck near hotels in central Baghdad killing at least 11 people today.

The first was near the Sheraton Hotel along Abu Nawas Street, just across the Tigris River from the Green Zone.

Two others followed near the Babylon Hotel and al-Hamra Hotel, which is popular with Western journalists.

Officials said the death toll was expected to rise.

The blasts come six weeks after a series of five bombs struck Baghdad, killing 127 people and injuring more than 500. The December 8 attacks – which included suicide bombings outside a court complex and the Finance Ministry – brought a wave of outrage from parliament members and others for security lapses in the capital.

Multiple blasts in August and October also targeted government buildings, killing more than 255 people.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed those attacks on groups loyal to Saddam Hussein’s now-outlawed Baath Party.

Earlier today an Iraqi security official defended a bomb-detecting device that Britain banned for export to Iraq because of questions about whether it works, saying it would be a “big mistake” to withdraw it from checkpoints.

The ADE651, made by the British company ATSC, is used at security points across Iraq, including outside the protected Green Zone that includes the Iraqi parliament and the US and British embassies. Britain halted the export of the machine to Iraq and Afghanistan after a news report challenged its effectiveness.

But Colonel Hato al-Hashemi, a senior explosives expert at the Interior Ministry, said the estimated 2,000 devices used by Iraqi security forces would not be taken out of service.