The blast flattened one building and damaged two others

BAGHDAD , March 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – At least 17 people were killed and dozens more wounded when a powerful car bomb devastated a central Baghdad hotel housing foreigners on Wednesday, March 17.

Three U.S. soldiers were also killed and nine others injured in the Iraqi capital a few hours after the massive hotel blast.

Flames engulfed buildings and smoke billowed into the sky as red light bathed the heaps of rubble where relatives screamed and cleared debris with their hands, searching for loved ones in the capital's Karrada neighborhood.

“It was a car bomb. We have not found any remains in the car,” said U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Peter Jones amid the stench of burnt metal.

Jones told reporters at the scene that 27 people were killed and 45 wounded, but minutes later an AFP correspondent saw another two corpses pulled from the rubble.

The American colonel also said that two Britons were among the wounded.

Firemen battled the raging flames and young men pulled bodies from the rubble in the crowded neighborhood near a hospital and the Mount Lebanon hotel, a spot with no heavy security, where Britons, Jordanians and Egyptians stayed.

The blast flattened one building and damaged two others. Its brutal force smashed out windows and sent glass flying, while the facade of the hotel was scorched black.

The explosion gouged a six-foot (two meter) wide, 10-foot deep crater.

As soldiers rushed to rescue victims trapped in the rubble, furious Iraqis shouted at them to leave. But the area was quickly cordoned off by U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces as helicopters circled overhead.

Late in the evening, cranes and bulldozers cleared the collapsed buildings as they scoured for survivors.

 ‘Terrorist’

The United States was quick to take blame to “terrorist organizations” trying to foment a civil war among Iraq 's ethnic groups.

“I think it's probably a sign from the terrorist organizations we've been tracking. They're still capable of spreading terror in the country,” U.S. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said.

Kimmitt, deputy operations chief for the U.S. occupation forces, said “the preliminary judgment on this is it may have been a suicide bomber. If this holds ... this would lead us to point to outsiders”.

“It's similar to attacks we've seen before... like Ansar Al-Islam or the Zarqawi network,” Colonel Ralph Baker told CNN, referring to militant groups which the Americans consider their greatest adversary in Iraq .

He said the vehicle which exploded was packed with 450 kilograms (1,000 pounds) of Russian-made PE-4 explosives and artillery shells.

In the United States , Vice President Dick Cheney blamed “thugs and assassins” that are “desperately trying to shake our will” for the Baghdad attack.

American Casualties

In the meantime, three U.S. soldiers were killed and six others wounded in a mortar attack northwest of Baghdad .  

“A 13th Corps Support Command Soldier was killed and seven were wounded in a mortar attack at approximately 12:45 p.m. March 17th at Logistics Base Seitz near Baghdad ,” a U.S. military statement read.

“Three of the wounded were medically evacuated to the 31st Combat Support Hospital , where one died of wounds,” it added.

The attack was on a base just outside the city, close by the Baghdad airport.

Aljazeera said that another American soldier was also killed in a separate attack earlier on the day.

The Qatar-based channel said that three Iraqis also breathed their last in an attack on the vehicle of a TV team riding across northern Baghdad .

The attacks came just ahead of the March 20 one-year anniversary of an invasion U.S. President George W. Bush promised would make the world safer from terrorism.

Four American soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb on Sunday, March 14.

• Baghdad Explosion in pictures