BAGHDAD, Iraq – Rockets struck a Baghdad hotel housing foreign contractors and journalists late Thursday, drawing return fire and underscoring the precarious security in the heart of the Iraqi capital. Outside Baghdad, roadside bombings killed two more American soldiers.
In Fallujah, residents said a U.S. warplane struck a house with a rocket, killing 10 people, including a groom on his wedding night, and wounding the bride and 16 others. Residents reported several other strong explosions in the insurgent stronghold duriing the night.
The U.S. command in Baghdad said it had no report of any U.S. air activity in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, although suspected terrorist hideouts there have been frequently targeted by U.S. aircraft.
The latest attacks came as an aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr offered to disarm his Mahdi Army militia in a move that could bring an end to weeks of fighting in Baghdad’s Shiite district Sadr City. The government cautiously welcomed the offer and suggested other militant groups also lay down their arms.
Three Katyusha rockets slammed into the Sheraton hotel, the Interior Ministry said, triggering thunderous explosions, shattering windows and setting off small fires. Dazed guests, including Western journalists, contractors and a bride and groom on their wedding night stumbled to safety through the smoke and debris.
“I made a mistake by booking at the Sheraton,” said Hayer Abdul Zahra, holding his shivering bride under his arm. “I knew something like this would happen.”
There were no deaths or serious injuries, Iraqi officials said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said the rockets were fired from the back of a minibus parked near Firdous Square, where jubilant crowds hauled down a statue of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003, marking the fall of the capital to American forces.
A fourth rocket blew up inside the vehicle, he said, as security guards responded with ear-shattering volleys of automatic weapons and machine gun fire.
American and Iraqi authorities are trying to curb the growing insurgency in Baghdad and elsewhere in order for national elections to take place by the end of January. Some U.S. military officials have expressed doubt that balloting can be held in all parts of the country.
Elsewhere, the U.S. command said one American soldier from the 13th Corps Support Command died and two others were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded late Wednesday near Fallujah. A 1st Infantry Division soldier was also killed and an Iraqi interpreter wounded in a bombing near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, the command said.
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