 Rockets and car bombs hit the Palestine Hotel on Monday, wounding at least five people and causing considerable damage to the building that houses many foreign journalists, Iraqi police and journalists said. Associated Press Television News pictures showed a huge explosion on the northwest side of Firdous Square, which is adjacent to the hotel. Thick clouds of smoke and dust billowed from the area, and at least one fire was started by falling debris.| Pics at the link show a LOT of black smoke. |
Security sources said the explosions occurred two minutes apart. Inside the hotel, light fixtures were blown down, pictures were blasted off the walls and windows were shattered. An AP photographer at a checkpoint at the northwest corner of the hotel said at least three fellow photographers were injured and taken away by ambulance. Two TV personnel inside the hotel also sustained minor injuries. The attacks caused heavy damage to the south side of the 19-story hotel, forcing journalists, including those from AP, Fox News and the U.S. government-funded Alhurra TV station to take refuge in the corridor. After the bombing, Iraqi forces opened up with heavy automatic weapons fire, apparently firing at random. There was no sign of a further assault on the hotel. It did not appear that the car bombers managed to penetrate the high concrete blast walls around the Palestine Hotel, which was last hit by an insurgent rocket attack on Oct. 7, 2004. Maj. Abbas Mohammed Suleiman said the hotel compound was hit by rockets and car bombs.
APTN video taken immediately after the explosions from inside the hotel showed people evacuating through damaged hallways with panels from the ceilings and walls blown out in the stairwell. Debris from the blasts were seen on the floor of one empty room, where a television set was still turned on. |