Rockets on Friday slammed into the Iraqi oil ministry and two central Baghdad hotels used by Western contractors and journalists, wounding several people, police and witnesses said.  

Three rockets had hit the oil ministry, which was ablaze, police said.

Guests evacuated the Sheraton and Palestine hotels, located in a fortified compound near the Tigris river, after the buildings were hit by rockets. Guests saw shards of glass and fragments of plaster and concrete scattered across the floors.

Witnesses said at the hotels said they had seen several people with at least light wounds. A security guard said two people had been taken to hospital.

Police officers near the scene said a man had fired rockets from a launcher hidden on a donkey cart. A US soldier at the scene said the rockets were RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades.

A Reuters reporter close to the hotels about an hour after the blasts said the cart was lying on its side and he could still see several rockets lying on the ground.

The Palestine Hotel appeared to have been hit around the 16th or 17th floor, a Reuters witness surveying the damage said. At least two holes were punched in windows at the Sheraton, witnesses said.

A security guard at a nearby building said he had seen a rocket or rocket-propelled grenade fly through the air toward the hotels.

The Sheraton still uses the name of the luxury hotel chain although it is no longer part of it. The two hotels are guarded round the clock and surrounded by concrete walls.

(China Daily November 21, 2003)