AQ Strikes in Heart of US Allies – Kills 7 Anbar Sheiks

Suicide bombers kill 45 in Baghdad and at secure Mansour hotel

BAGHDAD (AP) – The bomber at the Mansour Hotel, on the west bank of the Tigris River, struck as the lobby bustled with members of news media organizations headquartered at the hotel and other guests, witnesses said.

Among them were a group of sheiks associated with the Anbar Salvation Council , an alliance of Sunni Muslim tribes that have turned against the al-Qaida in Iraq extremists in a bid to drive them from the western province of Anbar.

Police and security officials said a man wearing traditional Arab garb like the sheiks’, complete with headdress, entered the lobby. He also was wearing a belt of explosives, packed with nails and metal pellets, said these officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. He approached the sheiks and detonated the bomb.

A traditional Arab headgear lays amidst the rubble at the lobby of al-Mansour Hotel in central Baghdad. Suicide bombers struck a hotel in the heart of Baghdad and police targets in a wave of bombings that killed at least 45 people, including tribal leaders who have vowed to fight Al-Qaeda.

A police officer based at the hotel identified four tribal leaders killed as former Anbar governor Fassal al-Guood, sheik of the Albu Nimr tribe and a Mansour Hotel resident; Sheik Abdul-Azizi al-Fahdawi of the Fahad tribe; and Sheik Tariq Saleh al-Assafi and Col. Fadil al-Nimrawi, both of the Albu Nimr tribe. Three of al-Guood’s guards also were killed, the police officer said.

Another police official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said six of the assembled sheiks were killed.

Gen. Aziz al-Yassiri, a Defense Ministry adviser, also died in the hotel attack, a ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Asked whether al-Yassiri had been meeting with the sheiks, this official would say only he was on “an official mission.” The purpose of Monday’s fatal gathering of tribal chiefs remained unclear.

The U.S. command here has pointed repeatedly to the Anbar group and its opposition to al-Qaida as an example for other tribes to follow elsewhere in Iraq. But the Salvation Council reportedly has been riven by disagreements — over how closely to work with the U.S. occupation force, for example.

In a statement denouncing the bombing, the U.N. representative here, Ashraf Qazi, referred to it as a meeting “seeking to resolve differences.”