Car bomb rocks center of Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Suicide attackers struck again Sunday in Iraq, this time with twin car bombs in the heart of Baghdad that fell short of a hotel full of Americans but exploded on a busy commercial street, killing six bystanders and wounding dozens, U.S. military and Iraqi officials said.\nThe Pentagon said gunfire from Iraqi guards and U.S. personnel aborted the drivers' plan to hit the Baghdad Hotel, home to officials of the U.S.-led occupation authority here. At least one guard was reported among the dead; the two bombers also were presumed killed.\nThe lunchtime attack sent terror-stricken Iraqis fleeing up Saadoun Avenue, over broken window glass from banks, restaurants and shops and past the bloodied bodies of injured. American helicopters and combat vehicles converged on the chaotic scene as black smoke from burning cars billowed over the central city.\nThe six victims and 32 injured reported at al-Kindi Hospital -- four in critical condition -- were all Iraqis, authorities said. The U.S. military said three Americans were slightly injured.\nIt was the seventh fatal vehicle bombing in Iraq since early August, attacks that have taken more than 140 lives. None has been reported solved, and all have targeted institutions perceived as cooperating with the U.S. occupation of Iraq.\n"We will work with the Iraqi police to find those responsible and bring them to justice," Iraq's U.S. civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer, said after Sunday's bombing.\nBut along Saadoun Avenue, feelings ran high against the Americans and their inability to stop the bombings. "Hey! Hey! This regime's a failure!" a group chanted in Arabic at a group of U.S. soldiers as the fires raged.\nElsewhere in Iraq, other attacks on Americans continued Sunday. Two U.S. soldiers -- military police -- were slightly injured in a blast, apparently from a roadside bomb, just outside the main U.S. Army base in Tikrit, 120 miles north of Baghdad. Another soldier was wounded when his convoy came under small-arms and grenade attack 60 miles south of the northern city of Kirkuk.\nA statement signed by the same unknown group, "The Jihad Brigades of Imam Ali bin Abi-Taleb," promised to kill every member of the Governing Council and Iraqis who cooperate with the occupation. It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the statement or the recording.\nThe heavily guarded Baghdad Hotel sits at the foot of a short side street running from Saadoun Avenue. A tall wall of concrete slabs guards the intersection where the street meets the avenue. Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority said some of its staff and contractors reside in the hotel, and for weeks it was rumored to be home to CIA staff, although the U.S. intelligence agency denied Sunday it was their headquarters. It also is believed to house some members of Iraq's interim Governing Council.\nWitnesses said two cars sped toward the intersection, one going up the wrong lane on Saadoun, a two-way road, and suddenly veered behind the barrier to head toward the hotel.\nSabah Ghulam, 37, said one of the cars came at him as he rode in an automobile past the barrier. "The car was in front of us, a 1990 Toyota Corolla," he said. "He suddenly turned in toward the hotel. ... A policeman shot at him four times, and then there was the explosion"