Journalists' hotel in Baghdad attacked
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-25 08:43

Al-Rubaie told The Associated Press the men in the cars were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and light arms.

"The plan was very clear to us, which was to take security control over the two hotels, and to take the foreign and Arab journalists as hostages to use them as a bargain," he said. He refused to say if there were more cars involved, or if there were gunmen elsewhere to carry out the kidnappings.

An AP driver who was headed home at the time reported seeing three vehicles headed toward the square at high speed, striking the concrete barriers and then exploding.

After the bombing, Iraqi forces opened up with heavy automatic weapons fire, apparently shooting at random. There was no sign of a further assault on the hotel.

An image taken from a security camera shows a white vehicle on the roundabout outside the cement wall surrounding the Palestine Hotel compound, bottom right, moments before it appears to explode near the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Oct. 24, 2005. [AP]

There was minor damage to the hotel, which was last hit in an insurgent rocket attack on Oct. 7, 2004. Moments before the second blast, journalists, photographers and technicians were walking up and down hazy corridors in a state of confusion, urging each other to remain calm, put on flak jackets, and to stay away from windows. Thicker clouds of smoke filled the far end of one hallway, with many people coughing and waving their hands.

The second explosion shook the building momentarily. Confusion and panic again set in, with those inside debating whether to exit, but all eventually deciding to stay in the corridor and sit propped against walls, most in flak jackets. Sounds resembling gunshots could be heard outside.

Strips of floorboards were strewn about and air vents were blown in.

One AP journalist in the building at the time, Thomas Wagner, called the blasts "deafening."

"The impact pushed us forward in our chairs," he said.

He noted that the journalists at the Palestine often can hear the distant blast of other attacks. "But I've never felt blasts as strong or as loud as the ones Monday," Wagner said.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the indiscriminate killings had been carried out in the name of a "totally perverted ideology."

"It is a further illustration of the evil that we are dealing with," Straw said.

In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement condemning the bombings.

A general view of the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, in this March 24, 2004 file photo. [AP/file]

"These appalling attacks are fresh reminders of the myriad dangerous facing those who continue to report from Iraq," CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said.

The hotel complex has come under rocket fire from insurgents in the past, although there have been no media fatalities. Two journalists died when a U.S. tank opened fire on the Palestine in April 2003 as American forces captured Baghdad. The committee said the killings were not deliberate but could have been avoided.

Reporters Without Borders also vigorously condemned the bombings.

"By attacking the Hotel Palestine, which is commonly known to be home to many foreign journalists, those behind this cowardly attack sought to deliberately target the Western media," the press freedom organization stated.