A suicide bomber who detonated a car bomb outside a Baghdad hotel shortly before dawn on Wednesday has killed himself and at least two others, a spokesperson for the United States military in Baghdad confirmed.
At least four other people were wounded, some seriously, in the powerful explosion that rocked the Shaheen hotel and the surrounding area of central Baghdad at 6.30am local time.
The military spokesperson said the attacker had been driving an ambulance packed with up to 500kg of explosives.
The blast destroyed the front of the hotel building, which is located in the residential area of Masbah, beside a police station and directly beside a building that, until 1991, served as the US embassy and later as the Polish embassy.
The hotel itself was used by the Polish secret service and foreign businessmen.
Iraqi Minister for Labour and Social Affairs Sami al-Majun, who was staying in the hotel, escaped the blast uninjured, witnesses said.
Most of the guests were still in the hotel at the time of the blast. US military forces sealed off the area and rescuers were searching for people trapped in the rubble.
Several cars were also burnt out in the blast.
Wednesday’s explosion follows a series of attacks on Tuesday that claimed the lives of six US soldiers, two Iraqi police officers and two Iraqi employees of the US television news channel CNN.
Three US soldiers died in Khaldiya, 90km west of Baghdad, as explosives detonated under their vehicle.
Two Iraqi policemen were killed as insurgents used machine guns to attack a checkpoint in Fallujah, 70km west of Baghdad.
The two CNN employees, a driver and an interpreter, died as an assailant shot them in their vehicle in Mahmoudiya, 25km south of Baghdad. — Sapa-DPA