Hotel 'threat' for Iraq Westerners
 |
High security around Baghdad Hotel thwarted the suicide bomber.
Story Tools
VIDEO
|
A car bomb explodes outside the hotel being used by Iraq's interim government.
|
SPECIAL REPORT
|
|
|
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Security has been raised around Baghdad hotels housing Westerners after U.S.-led Coalition military sources said they had received "specific threats."
Wednesday's warning came one day after a suicide bomber targeted the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad but was prevented from reaching his destination by concrete barriers that absorbed the blast.
On Sunday a suicide bomber killed seven Iraqis and wounded 32 people, including three Americans, near the Baghdad Hotel in the Iraqi capital in which Americans and members of the Iraqi Governing Council were staying.
That attack was thwarted by security guards who fired on the bomber when he sped through a checkpoint leading to the hotel's entrance. The car exploded 100 yards from the intended target.
No one has claimed responsibility for either bombing. Coalition officials have said they could be the work of former regime loyalists or outside terrorists.
Coalition helicopters were circling the Palestine Hotel in central Baghdad from about 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Wednesday.
Additional Bradley fighting vehicles and U.S. troops have been placed at the checkpoint in front of the hotel.
Coalition contractors, diplomats, international journalists, staff from relief agencies and U.S. soldiers guarding the complex make up the guests staying at the hotel.
Tuesday's blast was the sixth suicide bombing in Iraq since August 7, when a bomb at the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad killed 10 people.
In addition to the two embassy bombings, an August 19 attack killed veteran U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad's Canal Hotel.
That blast was followed 10 days later by a bombing at the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf that killed Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and at least 83 others.
Eight Iraqi police officers were killed October 9 in Baghdad when a suicide bomber raced past a checkpoint, exchanged fire with the police and detonated the vehicle in a police station's courtyard.
The attacks came shortly after recent speeches by U.S. President George W. Bush and other White House officials saying the U.S. reconstruction strategy in Iraq was on target.
