scoone
01-28-2004, 05:54 AM
Wed January 28, 2004 03:11 AM ET
By Joseph Logan
BAGHDAD (*******) - A suspected suicide bomber blew up his car outside a hotel in central Baghdad shortly after dawn Wednesday, killing three Iraqis, wounding several others and ripping the front off the three-story building.
Police said up to four people could have been killed.
The blast followed a bloody day in Iraq in which six U.S. soldiers and two CNN Iraqi staff were killed. U.N. chief Kofi Annan has said that if Iraq is deemed safe he will send a team to the country to study the feasibility of early elections.
"We were at our post when a car came rushing at us. We opened fire on it but couldn't stop it and then it blew up," Abdulamir Kraybot, a bodyguard for Iraq's labor minister, who lives in the hotel, told *******.
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao was due to arrive in Baghdad for a visit Wednesday.
Ambulances rushed to the site of the blast at the Shaheen Hotel, where smoke rose from mangled cars parked outside.
The U.S. military said three Iraqis were killed in the explosion. A spokesman said the blast was caused by a car bomb, although he did not specify if it was a suicide attack.
Doctors at nearby hospitals said they were treating at least five people wounded in the blast, which also blew off the facade of a house across the street and smashed windows in the area.
One security guard at the hotel said the blast was caused by a suicide bomber driving a vehicle that looked like an ambulance. It was not immediately clear what the target of the bomb might have been, although hotel employees said some foreigners were staying there.
Rescuers scoured through the rubble trying to get to anyone else trapped inside the building.
"A car smashed into the front of the hotel and then everything came down around us," Ibrahim Mahdi, one of the hotel security guards, said. The explosion comes a little over a week after a car loaded with 1,000 pounds of explosives detonated outside the main entrance to the U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad killing 25 people and wounding dozens more. Speaking in Paris Tuesday amid a surge in violence against U.S.-led occupation troops in Iraq, Annan said that if it was safe he would send a mission to the country to assess whether direct polls would be possible before the United States hands back power to Iraqis in mid-2004.
DOUBT OVER EARLY ELECTIONS
Yet one of his own envoys cast doubt on the idea.
Lakhdar Brahimi, 70, an Algerian ex-foreign minister, also signaled he would not play the key role Washington wants him to take in organizing a political transition to Iraqi self-rule.
"If you get your priorities wrong, elections are a very divisive process," he said. "They create tensions. They create competition. And in a country that is not stable enough to take that...one has to be certain it will not do more harm than good."
http://www.*******.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=CTGQMCLSU0ITYCRBAELCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=4225102
By Joseph Logan
BAGHDAD (*******) - A suspected suicide bomber blew up his car outside a hotel in central Baghdad shortly after dawn Wednesday, killing three Iraqis, wounding several others and ripping the front off the three-story building.
Police said up to four people could have been killed.
The blast followed a bloody day in Iraq in which six U.S. soldiers and two CNN Iraqi staff were killed. U.N. chief Kofi Annan has said that if Iraq is deemed safe he will send a team to the country to study the feasibility of early elections.
"We were at our post when a car came rushing at us. We opened fire on it but couldn't stop it and then it blew up," Abdulamir Kraybot, a bodyguard for Iraq's labor minister, who lives in the hotel, told *******.
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao was due to arrive in Baghdad for a visit Wednesday.
Ambulances rushed to the site of the blast at the Shaheen Hotel, where smoke rose from mangled cars parked outside.
The U.S. military said three Iraqis were killed in the explosion. A spokesman said the blast was caused by a car bomb, although he did not specify if it was a suicide attack.
Doctors at nearby hospitals said they were treating at least five people wounded in the blast, which also blew off the facade of a house across the street and smashed windows in the area.
One security guard at the hotel said the blast was caused by a suicide bomber driving a vehicle that looked like an ambulance. It was not immediately clear what the target of the bomb might have been, although hotel employees said some foreigners were staying there.
Rescuers scoured through the rubble trying to get to anyone else trapped inside the building.
"A car smashed into the front of the hotel and then everything came down around us," Ibrahim Mahdi, one of the hotel security guards, said. The explosion comes a little over a week after a car loaded with 1,000 pounds of explosives detonated outside the main entrance to the U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad killing 25 people and wounding dozens more. Speaking in Paris Tuesday amid a surge in violence against U.S.-led occupation troops in Iraq, Annan said that if it was safe he would send a mission to the country to assess whether direct polls would be possible before the United States hands back power to Iraqis in mid-2004.
DOUBT OVER EARLY ELECTIONS
Yet one of his own envoys cast doubt on the idea.
Lakhdar Brahimi, 70, an Algerian ex-foreign minister, also signaled he would not play the key role Washington wants him to take in organizing a political transition to Iraqi self-rule.
"If you get your priorities wrong, elections are a very divisive process," he said. "They create tensions. They create competition. And in a country that is not stable enough to take that...one has to be certain it will not do more harm than good."
http://www.*******.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=CTGQMCLSU0ITYCRBAELCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=4225102