Violence and death hit Iraq ahead of war anniversary

In Baghdad, the US military lowered the death toll in a suicide bombing at a hotel last night to seven, after initially putting it at 27.

Tonight, insurgents targeted the Ministry of Oil and the Bourj al-Hayat hotel in Baghdad with several rockets and explosive devices. There were no injuries. One projectile punctured a hole in the second floor of the hotel, which sometimes houses Kurdish politicians.

Sirens also wailed briefly in the area housing the US-led coalition headquarters. A US military official said there had been an attack and it was under investigation. There were no casualties.

It was unclear whether insurgents were timing attacks to overshadow the first anniversary of the March 20 start of the war that toppled Saddam, though assailants have often conducted attacks on big holidays and other significant dates.

The aim of anti-US forces appears to be to demonstrate Iraq is ungovernable despite some American progress in its nation-building effort, including the formation of an Iraqi police force, the signing of an interim constitution and plans to hand over power to Iraqis on June 30.

“We were fighting them knowing full well the better we did the harder it would get,” said Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the US Army’s 1st Armoured Division, which oversees security in Baghdad.

He said the fight in Iraq was evolving into a battle against shadowy extremists who attacked civilians rather than soldiers.

“It is far easier to fight an enemy who fights you conventionally and who fights you in some similar fashion to the way you fight him, than it is to fight an enemy who uses the tools of terror,” he said.

Today, gunmen killed three journalists driving to work at a coalition-funded television station. Nine other employees of Diyala TV in Baqouba, 35 miles north-east of Baghdad, were injured in the attack on their minibus, said Sanaa al-Daghistani, the station’s information director.

Rebels often target Iraqis perceived as collaborators with the occupation.

A man suspected of involvement in the Basra bombing and who got out of the vehicle shortly before the blast, was caught by passers-by and stabbed to death, Lt. Col. Ali Kazem of the Iraqi police said. Two others also spotted getting out of the vehicle before the explosion were caught by members of the public and later arrested.

At least 15 people were wounded, three seriously, hospital officials said. No British soldiers were wounded.

Unlike other areas of Iraq, Basra has been relatively calm.

Insurgents also fired mortar rounds at two US military bases yesterday, killing three American soldiers and wounding nine others. The deaths brought to 567 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of hostilities last year, according to Defence Department figures.

Brig Gen. Mark Kimmitt said 35 people were wounded in yesterday’s car bombing at the Mount Lebanon Hotel in the heart of Baghdad. Scott Mounce, 29, from Inverness in Scotland was killed and another Briton was wounded, the British government said.

US Army Col. Jill Morgenthaler confirmed the attack was a suicide bombing, but said the destroyed Mount Lebanon Hotel may not have been the intended target because the vehicle loaded with explosives was in the middle of the street and not in front of the hotel.

The hotel is in the middle of a busy district that is commercial and residential. The explosion set nearby homes, offices, cars and shops on fire, sending dazed and wounded people stumbling from the wreckage.

Maj. Gen. Dempsey said that if the hotel housing foreigners was the target, the attack bore a closer resemblance to targets of Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group with apparent links to al-Qaida.

He said it was less likely committed by the network of al-Qaida-linked Jordanian Islamic militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who appears to attack Iraqi targets – Shiite pilgrims or Iraqi police – with an aim to sowing discord and perhaps civil war.

An unidentified Jordanian suspected of having links with al-Zarqawi was arrested recently on the western outskirts of Baghdad, Dempsey said. The detainee was caught with a bomb.

The Mount Lebanon was a so-called “soft target” because it did not have concrete blast barriers and other security measures that protect coalition offices and buildings where Westerners live and work.

The nationalities of all the dead were not immediately known, though most were expected to be Iraqi.

A Moroccan, three Jordanians, two Britons, two Lebanese and an Egyptian were registered at the Lebanese-owned hotel, the duty manager said. Those killed included the hotel’s three security guards.

The bombing in Baghdad took place behind Firdaus Square, where Iraqis toppled a bronze statue of Saddam on April 9 with the help of US Marines who had just entered the centre of the capital.

In the restive town of Fallujah today, insurgents with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades clashed with US troops guarding at a local government building. One civilian died and another was wounded, witnesses said. The US military said eight US soldiers and a Marine were wounded when a mortar round hit a roof.