Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/blast-in-iraq-targets-anti-al-qaida-leaders Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript At least 50 people, including four tribal leaders opposed to al-Qaida, were killed in suicide bombings in Iraq. John Burns of the New York Times provides an update. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. MARGARET WARNER: John Burns, welcome. As we reported earlier, among the four sites that suicide bombers hit in Iraq today was the lobby of the well-known Mansour Hotel, where the blast killed some Sunni tribal leaders who had been cooperating with U.S. forces in Anbar province. Tell us about that: Is there any doubt that they were the intended target of this bomber? JOHN BURNS, Baghdad Bureau Chief, New York Times: No doubt whatsoever. There was a meeting of Anbar province tribal sheikhs in this high-rise hotel, not, I have to say, a very well-guarded high-rise hotel, and it seems that the lessons too often here are learned after the event.I'd been to the Mansour Hotel many times and have never felt particularly safe there. I've never felt that the vehicles entering or the people were sufficiently checked. Be that as it may, these Anbar sheikhs who are cooperating with the United States have made an enormous difference in what was the most dangerous province in Iraq, west of Baghdad, Anbar, overwhelmingly Sunni.I was out there today at the capital, Ramadi, with General Odierno, the operational commander of U.S. troops here, and it's gone from being the most dangerous place in Iraq, with the help of the tribal sheikhs, to being one of the least dangerous places. And it's extremely important for the entire American enterprise here.So the bomb that killed one very prominent sheikh and four or five others among the 12 who died was an arrow aimed at the heart of the American enterprise here.