Wednesday, March 17, a day after four Baptist missionary workers were confirmed shot and killed by unidentified assailants.
Witnesses said the blast at the Jabal Lebanon Hotel in central Baghdad, where Americans and other foreigners were among those staying left a huge crater and sent flames high into the night sky and smoke clouds billowing over Baghdad.
The attack came just three days before the first anniversary of the United States-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and on the same day that American and Iraqi forces began a large-scale operation targeting insurgents opposed to the U.S.-led military occupation
Turning a central part of the Iraqi capital into chaos as American troops moved in with armored vehicles and Apache helicopters to assist Iraqi police, the Voice of America (VOA) reported.
"COMPLETE DARKNESS"
A teen-ager who lives near a bombed-out Baghdad hotel told The Associated Press (AP) news agenct that there was a "huge boom" and after after "complete darkness", followed by the "red glow of a fire."
The senior editor of the nearby Baghdad bureau of the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera told AP that he was working when "the windows blew in" and covered him in glass. Mohammed Abdul Rahim said offices were nearly destroyed but no one appeared to be hurt.
In Baghdad, U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Peter Jones, of the First Armored Division, told reporters it was not known who carried out the attack. "Right now, nobody has claimed any responsibility," he said. "We have asked the hotel manager whether he received any threats and he has not received any threats previously."
ATTACKING CIVILIANS
It was the latest in a series of attacks that have been carried out against civilians, many of them foreigners, including Christians who are often viewed by Muslim militants as allies of America..
U.S. military spokesman General Mark Kimmitt was qouted as saying that a clear trend is emerging in which the Iraqi insurgency is moving away from attacking "the hard coalition targets and seems to be drifting over the past few months going against softer and softer targets." He made the announcement just two days after four American missionary workers of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board (IMB) were killed in Iraq’s volatile town of Mosul after a drive-by shooting.
The attack happened as they reportedly researched opportunities for humanitarian projects, including working to convert dirty water into pure.Initially three Americans were killed but the fourth person, 28-year old David E. McDonnall, of Rowlett, Texas, died early Tuesday en route to a military support hospital in Baghdad.
Others killed earlier were identified as Larry T. Elliott, 60, and Jean Dover Elliott, 58, of Cary, N.C., and Karen Denise Watson, 38, of Bakersfield, Calif. The IBM said it has mobilized its prayer network "and is asking Christians everywhere to pray for the healing of the injured workers and the comforting of all the families involved. "
