Two cars in suicide bombing of Baghdad Hotel

8.45am - By BRIAN WILLIAMS and MICHAEL GEORGY

BAGHDAD - Two cars were involved in Sunday's suicide bomb attack aimed at a hotel used by US officials on central Baghdad's main street.

The blast killed six Iraqis and injured dozens.

The attack deals a further blow to US President George W Bush who is trying to bolster support for his invasion of Iraq by highlighting postwar successes. Polls show his popularity tumbling as the cost of the war in lives and money mounts.

The blast, shortly after midday, shook buildings and shattered windows blocks away. Thick smoke poured into the sky and sirens wailed as ambulances and fire engines rushed to the scene.

"I saw limbs and pieces of flesh everywhere," security guard Kahin Hussein said. "The US soldiers were picking them up off the floor."

The attack took place exactly a year after the bombing of two nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali which killed 202 people and three years to the day since an explosives-laden rubber raft rammed a US destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 US soldiers.

US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel George Krivo said two saloon cars crashed at high speed through the security barrier at the heavily-fortified Baghdad Hotel and exploded.

He said both American and Iraqi security guards opened fire on the vehicles and averted a far greater tragedy by stopping the cars reaching the hotel entrance.

"The cars swerved around and attempted to avoid the checkpoint and then there was a detonation and an explosion," he told reporters.

Krivo said it was unclear whether both cars were packed with explosives or if one of them was a decoy to breach security barriers so the other would have a clear run at the hotel.

The hotel is widely thought to be used by members of the CIA, officials of the US-led coalition and their Iraqi partners in the Governing Council as well as US contractors. A US official in Washington said: "It is not a CIA facility."

Lying in a hospital bed in a bloodstained vest and shorts, hotel guard Ali Adel said he had opened fire on the car as it sped towards the hotel. "I took two shots at it and then it blew up," he said.

Iraqi police chief Ahmad Ibrahim said he suspected supporters of ousted president Saddam Hussein or guerrillas of the militant Islamist al Qaeda group. "They thought if they did this the Americans would be afraid and leave Iraq."

Attacks on US troops in Iraq have killed 94 soldiers since Washington declared major combat over on May 1. Bombs have targeted the United Nations, the Jordanian embassy and a hotel used by US media. Iraqis seen as cooperating with the US led-administration have also been targeted.

Earlier on Sunday, a roadside bomb struck a convoy of three civilian vehicles in central Baghdad, injuring five Iraqis, including a Shi'ite cleric, witnesses said.

When US forces sealed off the area, a crowd gathered and one Iraqi teenager lobbed an explosive at a US Humvee armoured vehicle. One US soldier was slightly injured.

Another roadside bomb exploded outside a US base in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit on Sunday wounding three soldiers, one seriously, an Army spokesman said.

Washington is pushing for a new Security Council resolution giving the United Nations a broader mandate to try to persuade reluctant countries to help in stabilise Iraq.

Turkey has agreed to send troops, but Iraq's Governing Council, handpicked by Washington, is resisting the move, saying neighbouring countries have too many of their own strategic interests in Iraq to be peacekeepers.

Turkey said on Sunday its troops could help guarantee peace in Iraq.

The United States will make the final decision on Turkish troops, but Council members said they were still in negotiations.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said the United Nations cannot play a political role in Iraq under the terms envisaged in the current draft US resolution. France and Russia have also criticised the draft, saying it should include a roadmap for a faster handover of power to a sovereign Iraqi government.

Annan has agonised over staff safety in Iraq since an August 19 suicide bomb attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad killed 22 people and a second bomb attack on the compound last month killed an Iraqi policeman and wounded 19.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq