BAGHDAD — In a coordinated attack as devastating as it was ruthlessly efficient, three bombs unleashed minutes apart on Monday wrecked landmark Baghdad hotels catering to foreigners, wilting a tattered sense of security and underscoring the uncertainty of the political landscape weeks before parliamentary elections.
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Rescue workers sifted through the rubble of the Hamra Hotel, devastated in a bomb attack on Monday. The hotel in Baghdad was used by many foreign journalists.
Emergency workers carried a body from the wreckage of the Hamra Hotel, where 16 were reported killed and 33 wounded.
The bombings, which killed 36 people and wounded 71, seemed to be the latest chapter of a campaign that began in August and that has hewn to a relentlessly political logic. With similar attacks in August, October and December, insurgents have sought to wreck pillars of Baghdad’s government and civic life, proving that the government and its security forces are unable to preserve the state’s fledgling authority.
The targets on Monday were hotels that served foreign journalists and expatriate businessmen, and they were soon to house observers of the March 7 parliamentary elections, suggesting that the attack was aimed as much at shaping opinions abroad of the government’s durability as it was aimed at wreaking destruction.
“The attackers wanted to send a message to the world,” said Hazim al-Nuaimi, a political analyst here. “The message is that Iraq can’t provide security for foreigners.”
The bombs cut through snarled traffic at rush hour and sheared off a facade of one hotel. In streets strewn with broken glass, where the scent of shorn eucalyptus trees mixed with the stench of charred flesh, some survivors rued a sense of the inevitable. In the past attacks — wrecking ministries, government offices, a courthouse, colleges and a bank — the blasts had thundered across the capital, only to be followed by weeks of relative calm. With the passage of each peaceful day, they said, time for a recurrence seemed to be growing short.
“We had been expecting more,” said Abbas Salman, gazing at a street where rescue workers carried severed legs and arms through crowds of stunned onlookers.
The three bombs exploded within about 10 minutes of one another during afternoon rush hour. The first struck the Ishtar Sheraton at 3:28 p.m.; followed three minutes later by one at the Babylon Hotel; and then, at 3:37 p.m., by one at the Hamra Hotel. The Hamra and Sheraton are home to much of the capital’s foreign press corps. The Washington Post reported that three of its staff members were wounded by flying glass, though the injuries were not life threatening.
The blasts shook the city and shattered windows miles away. In neighborhoods near the hotels, which are within about a mile of one another, residents spilled into the streets wailing, as plumes of dust, smoke and debris wafted across the skyline. Staccato bursts of gunfire echoed through the streets, as security forces tried to cordon off the bombing scenes, some of them draped in the banners and flags of a major Shiite Muslim commemoration this week.
“By God, move!” one officer shouted. “Are you staring at people’s disasters?”
Residents often answered with their own anger, in a striking sign of the lack of respect the security forces, particularly the police, are often shown in the capital.
“We have the right to complain!” one survivor shouted at a police officer.
Since last summer, the army and Interior Ministry forces have assumed sole responsibility for security after the withdrawal of American combat troops from the cities last summer. At checkpoints punctuating virtually every street, intersection and bridge, nearly all of the Iraqi forces deploy a bomb-detecting device that Britain has banned for export on the grounds that it is useless.
Iraqi officials have said that they would begin an investigation into why the government paid at least $85 million to a British company, ATSC Ltd., for at least 800 of the bomb detectors, called ADE 651s. But the Interior Ministry has yet to withdraw the device from duty, and some officials have continued to defend its effectiveness.
“Checkpoints, security precautions, these devices?” asked Abbas Mohammed, 45, an air-conditioner repairman standing outside the Babylon Hotel. “What are they doing? How can these cars get through the checkpoints? How can all these explosives pass?”
The attack came at a precarious time. The capital’s political class is mired in a dispute over the disqualification of hundreds of candidates for promoting the Baath Party of former President Saddam Hussein. Despite calls for compromise and warnings by the United States and United Nations officials that barring the candidates threatens the credibility of the vote, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has taken a hard line.
The prime minister faces a competitive campaign against a rival Shiite Muslim alliance, which has proved eager to question his anti-Baathist credentials as well as his claims of restoring a semblance of security.
American officials have warned that violence will almost assuredly escalate before the vote, and survivors of the attack offered as many suspects as motives — including Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown terrorist group, acting with Baathists, as well as Mr. Maliki’s rivals. Mr. Maliki has blamed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Baathists for the previous attacks, though American military officials have consistently maintained that Al Qaeda acted alone.
“The parties have already started fighting over the seats of power,” said Heidar Abbas, 42, a pharmacist. “Who’s responsible? It’s the parties themselves.”
The highest toll, 16 dead and 33 wounded, was reported at the Hamra Hotel, situated in a densely populated but fortified neighborhood. At the hotel, a day laborer who gave his name as Abu Haider said he saw men in a car exchange gunshots at a checkpoint outside the compound, then watched a second car speed through.
“It was just seconds before the explosion,” he said.
The bomb left a crater about 12 feet wide and 6 feet deep about 50 feet from the Hamra Hotel. It destroyed the house in front of the hotel, where rescue workers pulled bodies from the rubble. A woman who gave her name as Um Riyadh emerged from the ruined hulk of a house across the street from the hotel, blood on her head and face.
“We lost the house,” she said, crying. “We lost everything. Why should I stay in Iraq? I’m going to leave. There’s no other solution.”
Eleven people were killed and 26 were wounded at the Sheraton, which is no longer affiliated with the hotel chain and shares a street with the Palestine Hotel. The bomb there, which left a crater six feet deep, toppled a row of 20 30-foot blast walls like dominoes. Trees were split as if they were matchsticks.
At the Babylon, officials said nine people were killed and 12 were wounded. Blood was smeared on the hoods of two cars, and rescue workers hurried to cover corpses with whatever they could find — cardboard; a tattered, soiled blanket; a sheet of plastic. Onlookers gathered around what they said was the corpse of the attacker, a bloodied torso still attached to wires, the watch on his wrist still keeping time.
