The World According To Chris Brewer

Baghdad is one of the craziest places in the world.

When I was coming into work this morning, I no sooner had passed the entryway into my work when I heard a distant blast…followed by a much more powerful one. It was pretty loud so it sounded pretty close. I ran inside and grabbed my body armor and helmet, and put them both on rather quickly. The South American guards stationed outside the front entrance were shouting that it was two mortars that hit really close to us, but a little bit later we found out what it really was. Here is a news article from MSNBC and the Associated Press that tells what it was.

By Faris al-Mehdawi

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two suicide truck bombs targeted a prominent hotel in Baghdad on Friday but failed to pierce the perimeter and destroyed an apartment block instead, killing at least six people, including two children, police said.

The blast was also in the area of an interior ministry prison bunker at the centre of a detainee abuse scandal that has deepened sectarian tensions, but the U.S. military and security experts said the Hamra Hotel was the primary target.

Police said at least six people died and 40 were wounded in the near simultaneous blasts. There were no reports of foreign casualties. Witnesses at the hotel said victims’ body parts were found in the swimming pool and in the street outside.

Security camera footage showed a white van driving up to blast walls at the exterior perimeter of the hotel complex and exploding. About 20 seconds later the second explosion blew out the camera.

The nearby apartment building was reduced to rubble, about 20 cars were destroyed and dozens of firefighters and soldiers were searching for residents trapped beneath wreckage.

Distraught women in black veils slapped their heads as they surveyed the destruction. A man embraced a weeping woman.

U.S. Colonel Ed Cardon told reporters at the scene that two vehicles drove at blast walls protecting the Hamra. The plan appeared to be for the first to open a path for the second to breach the outer defences and cause more damage, he said.

A foreign security consultant said it clearly looked like an attempt to get inside the hotel compound. It was the second major attack on high-profile hotels in Baghdad in a month. The Sheraton and Palestine hotels were hit in late October.

About three hours later, U.S. troops blew up a suspected car bomb in the same vicinity.

The Hamra is several hundred yards (metres) from the bunker that was raided on Sunday by U.S. forces who found 170 prisoners, some of them showing signs of abuse.

But the bombers did not target checkpoints or defences of the interior ministry compound, and the method mirrored the previous hotel bombings, with one bomber trying to breach the first line of blast walls and another following behind. In the attack on the Sheraton and Palestine, three vehicles were used.

“A truck bomb hit this wall and blew up part of the wall. And then another small truck tried to penetrate and blow up these buildings,” Cardon said.

“Instead, what happened is both trucks blew up right here and did tremendous damage to this apartment building right here, wounding scores of innocent people,” he said.

So this happened not far from where I work, but we are all safe. Continue to pray for all the troops’ protection around here. Thanks and God bless!