Baghdad Hotel Blast Investigated

No group claimed responsibility for an explosion at a prominent Baghdad hotel that killed several sheiks.

The U.S. military said that four Sunni sheiks and two Shiite sheiks were among nine people killed in a suicide bombing Monday at the Monsour Hotel. The military said the identity of (the explosion’s) perpetrator is currently under investigation, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The sheiks were part of a group that was cooperating with U.S. efforts to fight the al-Qaida terror network the Anbar Province.

One group leader was not quick to blame al-Qaida for the bombing.

There are a lot of security measures around the hotel, checkpoints and security forces, Ali al-Hatim al-Suleiman told the Times. How would they manage to go through all these measures? This is silly to suggest that al-Qaida did this. We can not blame al-Qaida for everything!

Also Monday, one U.S. soldier was killed in an explosion in eastern Baghdad that wounded three other soldiers, the Kuwait News Service, KUNA reported.