Bombed in Basra

Manawi Basha Hotel, Basra

The evening started well enough, with fruit cocktails on the lawn and dinner with our special guest. No more than twenty minutes after we had moved inside, an explosion blasted open one of the third-floor rooms and showered the lawn with shattered glass. Large pieces of the window frame were found embedded in a metal fence over 140 feet from the hotel.

Apart from one individual who was smoking a cigarette outside and was hit by a small fragment of glass, no one was injured. My PSD thought that we had been hit by a mortar and left dinner to check the hotel’s roof. He reported back that there was no sign of a mortar and suggested I go upstairs to see how close the blast had been to my room.

Luckily, my room was undamaged but could only be entered by climbing over a small pile of rubble.