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US soldier dies in attack
26/10/2003 12:18 - (SA)
Baghdad - In a daring dawn strike from point-blank range, anti-American forces unleashed a barrage of rockets on Sunday against the Al Rasheed Hotel, a symbol of the US presence, inflicting casualties and delivering another message of resistance to the US-led occupation of Iraq.
After the 06:10 attack, a shaken-looking Paul Wolfowitz, the visiting deputy defence secretary, said he had unconfirmed reports of one American killed. The US military command spoke of an "unknown number of casualties" at the hotel, which housed both civilian occupation officials and US military.
Wolfowitz, on a three-day Iraq tour, was believed to have been in the Al Rasheed, whose western concrete face was left pockmarked with a half-dozen or more blast holes and shattered windows in two dozen rooms. The heaviest damage was on what appeared to be the fifth and eighth floors of the modern, 18-storyy building.
The attackers had boldly driven to the edge of a park just a half-kilometre southwest of the hotel, towing what looked like a portable, two-wheeled generator, Iraqi police said. They quickly fled, and rockets suddenly ignited within the trailer, apparently on a timer, and flashed toward the nearby hotel, their impact resounding across central Baghdad.
Three approaching security guards were injured by the ignition blast, police said.
After the attack, scores of American officials fled the building in pajamas and shorts, heading for a nearby convention centre housing occupation offices, witnesses said.
Wolfowitz, expressing "profound sympathy" for the victims, said danger persists in Iraq "as long as there are criminals out there staging hit-and-run attacks".
Just a day earlier, and only hours after the deputy secretary left the 4th Infantry Division base at Tikrit, north of Baghdad, a division helicopter crash-landed after receiving ground fire near the base. The Black Hawk pilot managed to maintain control after the hit and crash-landed, said division spokesperson Major Jossyln Aberle. One crewmember was injured, she said.
After the hotel attack, US troops flooded the area, closing off roads around the "green zone", an already heavily guarded district of central Baghdad that includes the palace headquarters of the US-led coalition and the offices of the interim Iraqi Governing Council. The morning clampdown caused monumental traffic jams.
The rockets were fired two hours after coalition authorities ended the nighttime curfew in the Iraqi capital in preparation for the Muslim holy month Ramadan, which begins here on Monday. Officials cited improved security as the reason for ending the curfew.
- SAPA
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