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BAGHDAD, Mar 9 (AFP): Gunmen and a suicide truck bomb set ablaze Iraq's Agriculture Ministry and a neighbouring hotel, popular with westerners, early Wednesday, killing two security guards and wounding 28, eyewitnesses and medical sources said.
The multi-pronged attack saw gunmen, some dressed in police uniforms, kill a pair of security guards before a garbage truck barrelled its way into the parking lot behind the ministry and al-Sadeer hotel, where western contractors were staying.
The blast carved a six-foot (two-metre) deep and 12-foot (four-metre) wide crater in the ministry parking lot and happened directly behind the eight-floor al-Sideer hotel, where the blast had knocked out all the windows and left heaps of debris in front of the hotel.
More than two-dozen vehicles were twisted, burnt and thrown upside down, some piled into a small hill of metal and spewed white smoke.
An annex to the ministry was partially charred and torn apart.
In front of the Al-Sadeer hotel, Sabiha Kazar (40), broke down in tears, worried for her wounded husband and two daughters, who had been whisked to hospital.
"Our home is practically destroyed," she said breaking down into tears.
The attack started at 6:30am (0330 GMT) when a black BMW opened rocket-propelled grenade fire on a checkpoint sealing off the main road to the ministry and hotel, which guards said was used by westerners working on electricity projects.
"I saw a black BMW, pull up to the checkpoint and shoot one guard. There was a change of guard at the time. The BMW killed the guard and cleared the way for the garbage truck to enter," said 23-year-old mechanic Haidar Hamid.
Within minutes, two men in police uniforms approached on foot a second checkpoint further up the same street and shot dead one security guard.
"Two policemen shot the guard at a checkpoint to the main entrance to the ministry, while guards at the al-Sadeer hotel started to fire heavily down the street," said 17-year-old bakery delivery boy Mohammed Fadl.
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