BAGHDAD — There are reports of a mor­tar attack and two large car bombs at the Sher­a­ton Hotel, home of Fox News and, next door in the Pales­tine, the Asso­ci­ated Press. There has been a third car bomb attack on the al-Sadeer Hotel up the road from me.
[UPDATE 10÷24÷05 6:03:43 PM: Now it appears it’s three car bombs at the Palestine/Sheraton com­pound instead of mor­tars… No attack on al-Sadeer as near as I can tell. CNN’s footage is chill­ing; two smaller explo­sions in front of AP cam­eras on the Pales­tine Hotel, and then a third huge explo­sion. As you watch, you can see a tanker truck cement mixer enter the com­pound before explod­ing in a mas­sive cloud of fire, dust and smoke.
[This means they knew where the cam­eras are. They know how to get into the com­pound. And there’s a good chance the first two explo­sions were designed to get jour­nal­ists’ atten­tion, draw them to the win­dows and then explode the third one.
[No good word on casu­laties yet. Noth­ing reli­able.]
Things are con­fus­ing right now and we’re unsure what has hap­pened, but that’s the lat­est. The blasts rat­tled my win­dows and I’m three or so kilo­me­ters away.