Hotels in Baghdad attacked by bombers

According to a latest new report, at least 36 people have died recently due to a set of car bombs that were placed outside some of Baghdad’s leading international hotels. This includes the Ishtar Sheraton.

The three massive explosions rocked the Iraqi capital shortly before the government announced the execution of Saddam Hussein’s cousin, Ali Hassan Al Majid, also known as Chemical Ali. It is still yet to be established whether these two incidents are related or not.

The first explosion took place at around 3:40 p.m. by the Ishtar Sheraton, followed by a bomb blast at Babylon Hotel (which is used by Iraqi traveler’s and sometimes for government meetings), and the final bomb was set off at the Al Hamra Hotel.

There have been no claims of responsibility for the attacks, this far, which took place 6 weeks after a series of blasts, killed 127 people and promoted widespread protests at the government’s inability to prevent terrorists attacks.

According to some statistics, 15 of the victims who were killed were at Al Hamra, 14 at the Sheraton, with the remaining 7 at Babylon. This tally includes two policemen. The top military representative of Baghdad, Major General Qassim Al Moussawi, said that suicide bombers were behind all these attacks.

A government spokesperson confirmed Majid’s execution which took place a week after he was sentenced to death for the poison gas attacks that killed more than 5,000 Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988.