Surge of suicide blasts kills 27

Associated Press BAGHDAD (AP) - A suicide bomber who penetrated layers of security blew himself up in the busy lobby of a leading Baghdad hotel today, killing at least nine people, including a U.S.-allied tribal sheik, police reported. The attack, in which 16 others were wounded, was just one in a surge of five suicide and other bombings today that killed at least 29 people across Iraq. In an equally deadly attack, a suicide truck bomber targeted an Iraqi police station shared with U.S. troops in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, killing nine people. There were no American casualties in that blast, the U.S. command said. The bombing at the high-rise Mansour Hotel, on the west bank of the Tigris River in central Baghdad, struck at about noo