BAGHDAD, 19 November 2005 — Suicide bombers killed 74 worshippers at two mosques in eastern Iraq yesterday while in Baghdad two car bombs targeted a hotel housing foreign journalists and killed eight Iraqis.
The suicide attackers targeted the Sheikh Murad Mosque and the Khanaqin Grand Mosque — both homes to Shiites — in Khanaqin, 140 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, as dozens of people were attending Friday prayers, police said. The police command said 74 people were killed and 75 injured in the largely Kurdish town.
At sunset, dozens of people were still digging through the rubble of the three-story Grand Khanaqin Mosque. As the men dug, 12-year-old Sarkhel Akram collected copies of the Qur’an, then she kissed them and put them away.
The suicide attacker walked into the mosque and detonated himself in the middle of a group of people, said Ali Abdullah. He added that the suicide attacker’s “flesh could be seen on the walls of the mosque after the explosion.”
Omar Saleh, 73, said from his bed at Kalar Hospital that he was bowing in prayer when the bomb exploded.
“The roof fell on us and the place was filled with dead bodies,” he said.
Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division assisted Iraqi security forces in Khanaqin sending medical specialists and supplies.
Hafez Abdul-Aziz, an official with the Iraqi Islamic Party in Diyala, condemned “the cowardly terrorist act” and said that his party members, most of whom are Sunni, are ready to donate blood for the victims in Khanaqin.
The blast near the Hamra Hotel in Baghdad knocked down the blast walls protecting the hotel and blew out windows, but did no structural damage. Several homes near the blast were destroyed.
“What we have here appears to be two suicide car bombs (that) attempted to breach the security wall in the vicinity of the hotel complex and I think the target was the Hamra Hotel,” US Brig. Gen. Karl Horst told reporters at the scene.
Including yesterday’s incidents at the mosques in Khanaqin and near the Hamra Hotel in Baghdad, suicide bombings in Iraq have killed at least 1,617 Iraqis and wounded at least 3,429 since April 28, 2005, according to an Associated Press count.
Of those, suicide-driven vehicle bombs killed at least 1,115 and wounded at least 2,591 and suicide bombers on foot killed at least 502 and wounded at least 888.
These totals do not include roadside bombs.
The blasts — about 30 seconds apart — reverberated throughout the city center, sent a mushroom cloud hundreds of feet into the air and were followed by sporadic small arms fire. At first the target appeared to be an Interior Ministry building nearby where US troops found about 170 detainees, some of whom appeared to be tortured.
The first blast — caused by a white van seen on surveillance video — knocked down the blast walls protecting the hotel, blowing out windows.
The second, bigger blast was caused by a water truck which tried to enter the hotel compound through the breach but apparently was blocked by the crater and rubble from the first explosion, officials and witnesses said.
Several residential buildings collapsed from the blast, which gouged a large crater in the road. Firefighters and US troops joined neighbors to dig through the debris and under toppled blast barriers to pull victims from the rubble.
It would be the second attack against a hotel housing international journalists since the Oct. 24 triple vehicle bomb attack against the Palestine Hotel, where journalists belonging to The Associated Press, Fox News and other organizations live and work.
Mike Boettcher, a correspondent for the US television network NBC, told viewers of the “Today” show that the blast wall saved the lives of the reporters inside the hotel.
