Major explosion at Baghdad CIA office----

Scary stuff it must be hellish over there ---

Blast rocks major hotel in Baghdad

10 reported killed in building thought to house U.S. personnel

BREAKING NEWS
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 12 — A huge explosion believed to be caused by a car bomb rocked central Baghdad on Sunday near the Baghdad Hotel, which is believed to be used by U.S. security personnel in the Iraqi capital. At least 10 people were reported killed.

BYSTANDER Hamid Rahim, 22, said he saw about a half-dozen injured taken away in police cars. Rahim said two cars tried to enter a side street leading from Saadoun Street to the Baghdad Hotel, but both exploded. It was unclear how many people had been killed or injured.

He and hotel co-worker Karim Abdel al-Hussein, 23, both said two cars approached the barricaded street at high speed and one or both got behind the side-street barricade. They believed both exploded before reaching the hotel. A police officer at the scene said at least 10 people were killed in the blast, Reuters reported.

The Baghdad Hotel is located at the end of a busy street, but it appeared the blast did not breach the interior of the building, NBC’s Tom Aspell reported from Iraqi capital.

Early reports indicated the hotel was a Baghdad headquarters for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Sirens could heard as emergency vehicles rushed to the scene. U.S. helicopters circled overhead minutes after the blast and dozens of Iraqi police raced to the scene. U.S. soldiers in Humvees were also at the site.

The blast rattled windows in the Palestine Hotel, home to many members of the international press corps covering the aftermath of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. It comes after a series of attacks aimed at Western targets in Iraq, which the U.S. blames on guerrillas resisting the U.S.-led occupation.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?vts=101220030358

 

The Bush Administration has done to little to late in bringing in assistance, and these types of large scale bombings will continue until we leave Iraq. There are approximately 40 attacks per day on our forces with two significant car bomb attacks this week alone.

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 stabilizing Iraq. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said the United Nations cannot play a political role in Iraq under the terms envisaged in the current draft U.S. resolution. France and Russia have said the draft should include a road map for a faster handover of power to a sovereign Iraqi government.

The attack deals a further blow to President 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.

Two-Car Suicide Bombing Kills Six in Baghdad
Sun Oct 12
By Brian Williams and Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A two-car suicide bomb attack aimed at a hotel used by U.S. officials on central Baghdad's main street killed six Iraqis and injured dozens on Sunday.

The attack deals a further blow to President 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 U.S. 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 after an explosives-laden rubber raft rammed a U.S. destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 U.S. sailors.

U.S. 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 if 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 U.S.-led coalition and their Iraqi partners in the Governing Council as well as U.S. contractors. A U.S. 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 toward 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 (news - web sites) or guerrillas of the militant Islamist al Qaeda group. "They thought if they did this the Americans would be afraid and leave Iraq."

ROADSIDE BOMBS
Attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq have killed 94 soldiers since Washington declared major combat over on May 1. Bombs have targeted the United Nations (news - web sites), the Jordanian embassy and a hotel used by U.S. media. Iraqis seen as cooperating with the U.S.-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 U.S. forces sealed off the area, a crowd gathered and an Iraqi teenager lobbed an explosive at a U.S. Humvee armored vehicle. One U.S. soldier was slightly injured.

Another roadside bomb exploded outside a U.S. base in Saddam's home town 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 stabilizing Iraq. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said the United Nations cannot play a political role in Iraq under the terms envisaged in the current draft U.S. resolution. France and Russia have said the draft should include a road map for a faster handover of power to a sovereign Iraqi government.

"We are still waiting to see the new draft resolution," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters on Sunday after talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. "We hope that a new dynamic will appear in the new resolution that will better reflect our requirements," Schroeder added.

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

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

 

I'm sure that Iraqi resistance knew that the hotel they were trying to blow up was an important US facility (instead of a UN building), but I wonder if they knew it was being used by the CIA? Strange coincidence with all the ‘Plame game’ going on right now (no I don’t think the situations are related) just a little odd.

 

Another day another car bombing in Iraq, I guess this is already old news now.