Al-Qaeda suspected of deadly attack on Baghdad hotel

• 1,000lb car bomb destroys hotel killing 27 and wounding 40 in Baghdad

• US Military commanders say attack bore hallmarks of al- Qaeda

• Two Britons, and many Americans, killed in blast

• Washington adamant that terrorism will not defeat US policy in Iraq

Key quote

"We will meet this test with strength and resolve. Democracy is taking root in Iraq and there is no turning back" - Scott McClellan, White House spokesman

Story in full AT LEAST 27 people were killed and 40 wounded after a huge car bomb devastated a hotel in central Baghdad last night.

The explosion, thought to be the work of a suicide bomber, left scenes of utter carnage at the Mount Lebanon Hotel and wrecked several residential buildings nearby.

Last night, United States army commanders were investigating reports that the hotel was used by foreigners - possibly westerners - working in Iraq.

Lieutenant Colonel Peter Jones told reporters at the scene that two British citizens were among the wounded and sources said some Americans had also been injured.

US commanders said the blast appeared to be the work of al-Qaeda or its Iraqi counterpart, Ansar al-Islam, both of which have been blamed for a spate of car bombings in Iraq since last summer.

Speaking at the scene, Colonel Ralph Baker said: "This matches the typical profile of those two groups. We think this was a car bomb as it left far too big a crater to have been a rocket attack.

"It looks like the bomb was 1,000 pounds of plastic explosives and artillery shells mixed in with explosives to create more injuries on the scene.

"It fits the profile of the terrorist organisations we have been combating in the last year - either Ansar al-Islam or the Zarqawi people.

"At this stage we do not know if the hotel was being used by foreigners, or whether they were foreigners of western extraction or otherwise."

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a suspected al-Qaeda operative accused by Washington of trying to spark civil war in Iraq.

The bomb exploded shortly after nightfall in Baghdad and shook windows across the city.

It blasted the front of the hotel apart and caused extensive damage to a four-storey block of flats directly opposite, leaving it burning and on the verge of collapse.

The hotel was a so-called soft target because it did not have concrete blast barriers and other security measures of the kind that protect offices of the US-led coalition and other buildings where westerners live and work.

Rescuers arrived at the scene to find residents desperately hanging out of the windows in a bid to escape the smoke and flames. Other dazed survivors were attempting to dig bodies from the wreckage of the hotel.

Such was the ferocity of the blast that it tore a crater at least 10ft wide and 6ft deep in the concrete road outside the hotel.

A grisly mixture of glass and shredded body parts lay scattered for hundreds of yards down the nearby roads, while a vast pall of smoke could be seen billowing into the night.

"I heard the explosion and I ran down the street, and saw many, many people killed. There were children dead," said Raad Abdul Karim, 30.

Mr Karim said the neighbourhood was populated by Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. "They are ordinary families," he said as ambulances and police cars raced to the scene and crowds of frantic Iraqis rushed to look for friends and relatives.

"You can imagine the scene when we got there was pretty bad," Col Baker said. "We were a while putting out fires and I think there may still be survivors being pulled out of the rubble."

Last night, confusion reigned over the bomb’s target. According to some locals, the hotel was one of many in Baghdad used by foreigners, although it was not widely known as such and is not believed to have had the usual presence of armed guards outside.

However, in recent months, some westerners in Baghdad have stayed at low-key locations in order to avoid being conspicuous targets.

Others said the hotel was heavily populated with ethnic Iraqi Kurds from the country’s northern areas. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are suspected of trying to inflame tensions between Kurds and Iraq’s other ethnic groups such as Sunnis and Shiites.

Washington, which blames the attacks on supporters of Saddam Hussein as well as foreign Islamic militants, vowed the blast would not sway US determination to bring democracy to Iraq.

"We will meet this test with strength and resolve. Democracy is taking root in Iraq and there is no turning back," said the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan.

The explosion occurred near Firdows Square, where a statue of Saddam was symbolically toppled on 9 April last year when US troops rolled into the city.

It is also close to the Sheraton and Palestine hotels, where many foreign contractors, companies and media organisations are based.

Guerrillas fighting the US-led occupation of Iraq have mounted a number of car bomb and other attacks in Baghdad in recent months and hotels have been targeted several times.