A South African has reportedly been killed in a suicide car bombing at a Baghdad hotel in Iraq early on Wednesday. At least three other people also died in the blast.
The bomb exploded in front of the Shaheen hotel, which is frequented by Westerners. A military spokesperson in Baghdad 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 United States embassy and later as the Polish embassy.
The hotel itself was used by the Polish secret service and foreign businessmen.
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.
South African Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa told the Mail & Guardian Online on Wednesday: ”We sympathise with the families of the deceased and wish those who were wounded by the explosion a speedy recovery.”
He said the department has started a process of confirming and verifying reports that a South African citizen was among the dead.
”Since we do not have a mission in Baghdad, we have tried to utilise the nearest mission in Iraq. The nearest South African embassy in that area is in Jordan.”
Mamoepa said the department is also trying to contact local companies that may have operations in Baghdad, so they could count their employees.
He did not know how many South African companies are operating in Iraq.
Iraqi Interim Minister of Work and Social Affairs Sami Izara al-Majoun, who lived in the hotel, was getting ready for his morning prayers when a loud explosion shook his room at about 6.50am and the building was filled with smoke. He was unhurt.
”My guards came to the room and rushed me downstairs. The hotel was burning and there was fire and smoke everywhere,” he reportedly said.
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.