Reporters hotel targeted

last updated 8 January 2015

Baghdad

Suicide bombers this week mounted a carefully choreographed attack on a hotel known for housing foreign journalists. First, insurgents drove two trucks into the wall around the Palestine Hotel to blast a hole; then an explosives-filled cement mixer roared through the breach. But a U.S. sniper killed the driver of the cement mixer before he penetrated the hotel, and the truck exploded in a huge fireball. The blast left 16 dead and more than 20 wounded, nearly all of them Iraqi civilians who had been breaking their Ramadan fast in nearby restaurants. “We know they have the potential to husband their resources and mount spectacular attacks,” said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Boylan. “If you do it next to news bureaus, you get all the publicity you want.”