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The Palestine and Sheraton hotels in central Baghdad were hit by a volley of five rockets fired from donkey carts.
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バグダッドのシェラトン・パレスチナ両ホテルに撃ち込まれたミサイルはロバの引く車から発射されたものだった。
１６発のロケットミサイルが干草に隠れて荷車に搭載されていたらしい。
が、発射の際にロバがお尻をやけどして（写真：痛々しい）暴れた際に車が倒れて
１６発のうち１１発は発射されず、結果として５発だけが２つのホテルに命中したそうです。
NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/international/middleeast/21CND-BAGH.html?ex=1070454498&ei=1&en=79e044d96d7bb364
Missiles Fired From Donkey Carts in Central Baghdad
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: November 21, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 21 — The Palestine and Sheraton hotels in central Baghdad were hit by a volley of five rockets fired from donkey carts at about 7:15 this morning. An American civilian in the Palestine Hotel was severely wounded and was being evacuated to a United States military medical center in Frankfurt, Germany.
Just before the attack on the hotels, eight rockets hit the nearby Oil Ministry, setting off a fire in the upper floors that burned furiously for a couple of hours after the attack. There were no reports of casualties in that attack.
Three donkey carts covered in hay, a common sight in Baghdad in the early morning, were found loaded with home-made concrete rocket launchers with steel tubes. They were housing either 107-milimeter Soviet-made Katushya rockets or 122-milimeter Brazilian-made Aspro rockets, powerful weapons that can hit targets at a range of 10 miles.
The donkeys attached to the carts were all tethered to trees and the rockets were set off by a home-made system using timer fuses and car batteries. One was outside the Palestine Hotel and another outside the Oil Ministry.
A third cart, carrying 32 rockets primed to fire, was discovered near the Italian and Turkish embassies in the city's diplomatic area, but did not explode.
In addition, a donkey wired with two propane gas cylinders set to explode was spotted near the College of Law at Baghdad University and the explosives were disarmed.
The pattern of several of the most serious attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq in recent months has appeared to have been aimed at driving as many Westerners out of the country as possible — thus isolating the American and British troops who carried the brunt of fighting in the war to topple Saddam Hussein, and making impossible the implementation of plans to spend billions of dollars on reconstruction here.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the spokesman for the United States military in Baghdad, said at a news conference that the attacks did not constitute a serious threat to the American military presence, but appeared to have been aimed primarily at striking a psychological blow.
"They're trying to break our will," he said. "They're trying to seize the headlines."
He described the attacks as spectacular and said they demonstrated the ingenuity and adaptability of the insurgent forces, who have mounted an increasing tempo of attacks on military and civilian targets.
The general conceded that the insurgents were exploiting american weaknesses, particularly in gathering intelligence that could prevent the attacks.
"But our intelligence is getting better every day," he said.
The military said 9 to 14 rockets were fired at the Palestine Hotel and the Oil Ministry. A spokesman said it was believed that the Sheraton was hit by an errant rocket aimed at the Palestine Hotel.
The wounded American, who was not identified, is an employee of a Halliburton subsidiary company that is the prime subcontractor for the rehabilitation of Iraq's oilfields. The subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, is the company that erected 20-foot- high blast walls intended to protect against truck bombings around the Palestine and Sheraton hotels and many other military and civilian installations in Baghdad.
On Thursday, an American soldier was killed and two were wounded when explosives detonated by their convoy west of Baghdad, the military said today. In a separate attack north of the capital, another American soldier was killed by a booby-trap, General Kimmitt said.
Within an hour of the attacks, the United States military had alerted all units across Baghdad, including Iraqi support units, about the use of donkey carts.
All four donkeys survived, and one of them, outside the Palestine Hotel, was given as gift by a United States soldier to a passing Iraqi. The donkey used in the attack on the Palestine Hotel, however, was singed in the rear by the ignition of a rocket. This apparently startled the animal, upsetting the cart. The result was that 11 of the 16 rockets on its cart did not go off.
The two 20-story hotels, on the east bank of the Tigris River, have long been regarded as potential targets for terrorist attacks.
At both hotels, there are a large number of American officials protected by uniformed American troops of the First Armored Division. American soldiers were quickly at the scene, clearing rooms and ushering guests down fire stairwells.
After the strikes on the 15th and 16th floors of the Palestine Hotel, guests milled about the corridors in their nightclothes, stepping over rubble and into air thick with soot and grime, as a loudspeaker urged then to go down stairwells to the ground.
The attack was potentially the most serious strike on a major target involving foreigners in Baghdad since the Oct. 26 suicide bombing of the International Committee of the Red Cross, one of a series of suicide bombings that day across the city that killed more than 25 people.
The strike on the Palestine Hotel was an eerie echo of an American tank shell that hit the hotel on April 7, two days before American forces overran Baghdad. The shell fired from a bridge across the Tigris to the north of the hotel, also struck on the 15th floor, killing two men, a Ukrainian and a Spaniard, both television cameramen.
A Pentagon investigation later cleared the tank unit of responsibility, saying the shell had been fired by a tank commander who did not know that the hotel used by almost all the foreign reporters in Baghdad.
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