Iraq bombs kill 11 after dramatic Baghdad blast

BAGHDAD - Car bombs hit Baghdad and the normally tranquil Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya today, killing at least 11 as insurgents pressed a renewed offensive after a dramatic suicide strike on a hotel used by foreign journalists.

Body parts were still strewn outside Baghdad's Sheraton and Palestine hotels following yesterday's triple bombing which police said killed at least 12 people and injured 22. 

Police said a suicide car bomber targeted a U.S. military convoy in the Mansour district of western Baghdad, killing one civilian and injuring five, police said. Another roadside bomb exploded near one of Baghdad's children's hospitals, killing one person and injuring another.

Hospital officials said nine people were killed when a car bomb exploded in the northern city of Sulaimaniya -- rarely troubled by violence that has racked the country in the past two years and magnet for investment in Kurdistan. 

Yesterday's attack on the Baghdad hotel complex, which lies across the Tigris from the heavily-fortified government "Green Zone" and serves as the base for several foreign media organisations, shook much of central Baghdad and sent huge columns of smoke and dust into the sky.

The bombings, at dusk in front of rolling television cameras that guaranteed global media coverage, broke a relative lull in insurgent violence over the past two weeks.

The U.S. military said a first car detonated outside the hotels' perimeter wall on Firdous Square -- where in April 2003 U.S. soldiers and Iraqis pulled down a huge statue of Saddam Hussein in one of the most memorable images of the war.

Then, as now, the Palestine hotel was known throughout Iraq as a base for international journalists.

"About five minutes later a second car bomb approached the square and tried to manoeuvre through the breach but was engaged by civilian security forces," the military said in a statement.

It blew up on the far side of the square.

Seconds later, an explosives-laden cement truck pushed through the broken wall and headed for the hotel, coming under fire from a U.S. soldier, the military said. The truck then exploded, causing extensive damage to the Palestine hotel lobby and hurtling chunks of debris hundreds of metres (yards) away.

Several news photographers were wounded in the attack and taken to hospital for treatment. No foreigners or U.S. soldiers were reported killed in the incident.

The U.S. military death toll since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 stood at 1,997 -- just short of the 2,000 mark that is expected to prompt new calls on U.S. President George W. Bush to outline an exit strategy.

Insurgents active

Iraq's National Security Adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said the bombings were designed to show that insurgents were active despite what he called successes by Iraqi security forces.

"The plan was to try to penetrate the defences of the Palestine hotel by blowing up cars and firing rocket-propelled grenades and light arms to occupy the hotel and kidnap the journalists," he said.

There was no sign of guerrilla forces on the ground.

U.S. officials warned of new attacks by Sunni Arab militants during this month's referendum on a U.S.-backed constitution and the trial of Saddam Hussein which began last week.

Another car bomb exploded today in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, near a building housing officials who deal with Kurdish militia forces, police and witnesses said. Hospital officials said at least nine people were killed.

Iraq's Electoral Commission was due to release final results from the constitutional referendum today, a potential spark for new violence among Sunni Arab militants who opposed the charter that both Washington and Baghdad hope will set Iraq on course to become a stable democracy.

On Monday, the commission confirmed that at least two of Iraq's 18 provinces voted "No" by huge majorities to the constitution, which under Iraqi law will be struck down if two- thirds of voters in three provinces reject it.

The focus now is on the northern province of Nineveh and its capital Mosul, which is mixed between Arab Sunnis, Kurds and other groups and is seen as being a potential "swing" vote which could veto the charter. Electoral officials have, however, already said they expect the constitution to be ratified.

- REUTERS