BAGHDAD — Suicide bombers struck almost simultaneously at three landmark Baghdad hotels Monday, killing 37 people, nearly half the fatalities after a dramatic shootout between security guards and militants outside the Baghdad residence of several major Western news organizations.
The midafternoon attacks, which authorities quickly blamed on al-Qaeda associates and loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, echoed three large-scale suicide bombings last year in which assailants struck at coordinated targets, sowing panic and chaos across the capital.
Though these latest bombings caused fewer casualties than ones in December, October and August, in which hundreds died, they sent the same deadly message: that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government is unable to fully secure key locations in the capital, despite major security gains in recent years.
But they came as no surprise — officials have been predicting that extremists would strike again at high-profile targets ahead of the country’s March 7 elections, and they predicted they would strike again as the polling nears.
The first bomb Monday hit outside the Sheraton Hotel on the Tigris River about 3:30 p.m., killing 14 and sending a huge boom reverberating across the city. Less than five minutes later, the nearby Babylon Hotel was struck, with seven people reported killed there.
The Hamra, home to several foreign news bureaus including the Los Angeles Times, was hit moments later, after a shootout between guards and gunmen who were seeking to help the bomber gain access to the closely guarded compound. Sixteen people were reported dead in that bombing, most of them residents of two homes that collapsed immediately adjacent to the bomb site.
The hotel suffered extensive damage, with walls and ceilings collapsing and windows shattering, but no one inside was badly hurt. Usama Redha, a reporter and translator for the Times, was hit in the chest by flying glass but was treated and released. The Washington Post, which maintains a bureau in the same compound, said three of its Iraqi staffers were slightly injured.
