IRAQ: A car bomb in the southern Iraqi city of Basra yesterday killed three people and injured 15, the latest in a series of attacks shortly before the first anniversary of the start of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The explosion, outside a hotel, narrowly missed a passing British patrol, believed to have been the target.
A man suspected of involvement in the bombing was stabbed to death by passers-by as he tried to flee the scene. Two others also spotted getting out of the vehicle before the explosion were caught by members of the public and later arrested.
Ambulances rushed to the area, and Iraqi police and British forces tried to push the crowd back.
Unlike other areas of Iraq, Basra has been spared the levels of violence seen in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, the US military lowered the death toll in Wednesday's bombing of the city's Mount Lebanon hotel to seven, after initially putting it at 27. Officials blamed the discrepancy on Iraq's disorganised healthcare system that distributes bodies to different morgues, leading to disputes over death tolls.
One Briton was killed and another injured in the Baghdad attack, which devastated the Mount Lebanon hotel and nearby houses in the busy Karrada district. Both Britons were employees of Iraq's new telecommunications company, Irascom, and had only been staying at the hotel for a few days. Most of the victims of the bombing were Iraqis living nearby.
The Baghdad explosion, which left a jagged six-metre crater, also set ablaze nearby homes, offices, cars and shops, sending dazed and wounded people stumbling from the wreckage.
The hotel's manager, Mr Bashir Abdul Hadi, said, "When I left the hotel several people were chatting and smoking in the foyer. When I returned there was nothing but blood and destruction." It was not clear if the hotel, a small, family-run affair, was the target of the attack.
Only a handful of people were staying there and the bomb detonated in the centre of the street rather than at the unprotected hotel entrance.
US officials say the attack was intended to cause maximum casualties and bore the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda-related group.
Last night two Baghdad hotels used by foreign contractors, businesspeople and media organisations were shaken by explosions but US soldiers said there did not appear to be serious injuries.
Lieut Col Peter Jones of the US 1st Armoured Division said two rockets had hit the Burj al-Hayat Hotel in central Baghdad but nobody was wounded. Two holes were blown in the side of the hotel. Witnesses said the roof of the nearby Rimal Hotel was also hit by a blast but there was no major damage.
Lieut Col Jones said the rockets were probably aimed at the headquarters of the US-led administration on the west bank of the Tigris river. Warning sirens sounded briefly at the US compound after the blasts rang out across Baghdad.
Guerrillas have repeatedly attacked the headquarters in recent months with rockets and mortars, but have rarely managed to cause significant damage.
Elsewhere in Iraq, gunmen opened fire on a minibus, killing three Iraqi journalists and wounding nine other employees of a coalition-funded TV station in north-eastern Iraq, police said.
Insurgents also fired mortar rounds at two US military bases on Wednesday, killing three American soldiers and wounding nine others, the military said yesterday. The deaths brought to 567 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the war.