Car Bombs (Dahr Jamail on the scene in Baghdad, photos)

[Barrett808]

The thundering blast rocks me awake at 7:05am. The first thing my eyes see are the curtains of my room flowing in, as if a strong wind is blowing into my room.

‘Holy shit, they hit the embassy,’ I think to myself, ‘the blast was so close.’

I leave my windows cracked and curtains drawn for just this reason-while my door was blasted open, splintering the frame where it was locked shut, none of my windows shattered. Aside from small chunks from the ceiling of my room strewn about the floor, I am alright.

I look out my window and see that despite shattered glass strewn outside many of the nearby buildings, the Australian embassy is intact.

I quickly throw on some clothes, grab my camera and run into the hall-where it is filled with so much dust it’s difficult to see.

In the hall, as well as all the others I see as I run upstairs, pieces of ceiling and broken glass are everywhere.

The suicide car bomb detonated near the base of a large building across the street which is home to many Australian soldiers. From there they guard the checkpoint to their nearby embassy from the multi-story building with snipers. Two smoldering bits of a vehicle sit nearby the building, and two bodies lay in pools of blood across the street.

(more)

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000175.php

[Robbien]

1. When Chris from Back2Iraq went back to Iraq

The first night in Baghdad he stayed at the same hotel, and a car bomb went off at the same Australian Embassy. Wonder how many times that embassy has been attacked.

The scene Dahr describes is almost an exact duplicate of Chris' except that Chris' driver finally made it through.