BAGHDAD, Oct 12: A suicide car bomber killed at least six Iraqis in an attack on a Baghdad hotel used by US officials on Sunday, shaking buildings blocks away with the force of the blast, the US military said.

Eyewitnesses said they saw a car crash through the security barrier at the Baghdad Hotel and explode. The heavily fortified hotel is widely thought to be used by members of the CIA, officials of the US-led coalition and their Iraqi partners in the Governing Council as well as US contractors.

US military spokesman Col Peter Mansoor said no Americans had died. An Iraqi policeman at the scene earlier said at least ten people had been killed.

At a nearby hospital, medics treated 19 people injured in the blast, many seriously. Three were civilians, six police and 10 security guards. Mansoor said one American soldier was slightly injured.

Thick black smoke poured into the sky. Distraught Iraqis waited to see what had happened to relatives working at the hotel.

“I saw limbs and pieces of flesh everywhere,” security guard Kahin Hussein said. “The US soldiers were picking them up off the floor.”

Sirens wailed as ambulances and fire engines rushed to the scene. The bomb, which exploded 100 metres from the hotel, blew a crater three metres by three metres into the road.

A concrete bomb wall protecting the hotel was blown over by the force of the blast, which happened at about 12:45pm (02:45pm). The lower floor of the building next door was on fire.

“I was driving beside the hotel when a white car suddenly crashed through the security barrier and exploded,” Iraqi eyewitness Sabah Ghulam said.

ROADSIDE BOMB: In another incident, a roadside bomb exploded outside a sprawling US base in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Sunday, wounding three soldiers, one seriously, an army spokesman said.