Baghdad, January 25: At least 36 people were killed and 71 injured yesterday in multiple bomb explosions in the hotel district of central Baghdad, a ministry official said.
Three massive car bombs shook the Iraqi capital in quick succession.
The first blast went off in the car park of the Sheraton Hotel and the second was in front of Babylon Hotel.
The third blast took place shortly after when a minibus drove into the Al Hamra Hotel compound and blew up 160 feet short of the main entrance, eyewitnesses said.
The bomb left a crater 30 feet wide and 12 feet deep.
The Iraqi army were trying to remove families that were trapped inside near-by houses and extract wounded from the second floor of the hotel.
The explosions came less than six weeks from a March 7 general election which both US forces and Iraqi politicians had warned could be a focus for violence.
The latest violence also occurred less than two weeks after security forces sealed off Baghdad after being tipped-off that bomb-laden cars had been parked in the city.
Insurgents, weakened in the past year, have in the past six months changed tactics and mounted successful high-profile attacks on “hard” targets such as government buildings, rather than so-called soft targets in civilian areas.
—Agencies