Iraq blasts kill 29
Suicide bombers have struck at a central Baghdad hotel and four other targets across Iraq today, in a surge of attacks that have left at least 29 people dead.
Iraqi authorities said a US-allied tribal leader was among those killed at the Mansour Hotel.
A man wearing a belt of explosives walked into the hotel’s bustling lobby around noon, approached the reception desk and detonated his bomb, police reported.
Nine people were killed and at least 16 others were wounded, police reported.
At a police station in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, nine civilians were killed and 21 others wounded by a bomb attack, police and medical officials reported.
About 45 minutes later, another suicide car bomb exploded at a joint US-Iraqi army checkpoint in central Siniyah, 9 miles west of Beiji, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding three others, an Iraqi army officer reported.
A suicide car bomber struck a checkpoint near the governor’s offices in the predominantly Shiite southern city of Hillah, killing at least eight people and wounding 31, police said.
