Baghdad blasts strike popular hotels, kill 37

BAGHDAD — Suicide bombers struck almost simultaneously at three landmark Baghdad hotels Monday, killing 37 people, nearly half the fatalities after a dramatic shootout between security guards and extremists outside the Baghdad residence of several major Western news organizations.

The midafternoon attacks — which authorities quickly blamed on al-Qaida associates and loyalists of the Baath party that ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein — echoed three large-scale suicide bombings last year in which assailants struck at coordinated targets, sowing panic and chaos across the capital.

Though these latest bombings caused fewer casualties than ones in December, October and August, in which hundreds died, they sent the same deadly message: that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government is unable to fully secure key locations in the capital, despite major security gains in recent years.

Officials have been predicting extremists would strike again at high-profile targets ahead of the country's March 7 elections, and they predicted they would strike again as the polling nears.

By striking at hotels, including the Hamra, which is favored by Westerners, the bombers once again called into question the capability of Iraq's security forces, whose leaders had boasted only a week earlier that they had thwarted a major plot to carry out high-profile bombing attacks in the capital.

The first bomb Monday hit outside the Sheraton Hotel at around 3:30 p.m., killing 14 and sending a huge boom reverberating across the city. A cloud of debris rose from the blast site, along Abu Nawas Street just across the Tigris River from the Green Zone. Less than five minutes later, the nearby Babylon Hotel was struck, with seven people reported killed there.

The Hamra, home to several foreign news bureaus including the Los Angeles Times, was hit moments later, after a shootout between guards and gunmen who were seeking to help the bomber gain access to the closely guarded compound. Sixteen people were reported dead in that bombing, most of them residents of two homes that collapsed immediately adjacent to the bomb site.

Eyewitnesses said at least one assailant, dressed in a business suit, disembarked from a white minivan and opened fire at the guards in an apparent bid to lure them away from the barriers protecting the hotel. The guards fired back, but also took cover, and then one gunman calmly raised the metal barrier blocking access to the compound, allowing the minivan to race through.

Footage from the hotel's security camera shows the white van hurtling through the concrete barriers toward the hotel, as the hotel security chief, Abu Ahmed, runs toward it, trying to make it stop.

The guards again opened fire on the van, and this time, Abu Ahmed said, they hit the driver, who detonated the bomb about 50 feet away from the hotel entrance. That may have saved many lives in the hotel, but the blast demolished two adjoining homes.

Although known in Baghdad as the Sheraton Ishtar, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide — owners of the Sheraton brand — pulled out of the hotel years ago.

The government has laid most of the blame for the previous attacks on loyalists of the Sunni-dominated Baath party, although they were all claimed by the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq.

Military spokesman Qassem Atta accused "terrorist organizations of al-Qaida and the Baathists, who are working together" of carrying out Monday's attacks, which coincided with heightened political tensions surrounding the decision to ban some 500 mostly secular and Sunni candidates from participating in the March poll because of their alleged ties to the Baath party.

Officials said they did not believe the attacks were linked to that decision, nor to the execution Monday of Ali Hassan Majid, the former Saddam Hussein henchman known as "Chemical Ali." His hanging was only made public after the bombers had struck.

It is clear however that extremists are intent on shaking things up before the election, in which al-Maliki will be fighting to keep his job against an array of opponents, including rivals from within his own Shiite coalition and a potentially powerful secular coalition headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

With al-Maliki staking much of his popularity on his reputation as the man who restored a measure of security to Baghdad after the ravaging sectarian warfare of 2005-07, it is he who has most to lose from the repeated bombings.

Additional material from The Associated Press and The Washington Post is included in this report.