by Xinhua writer Duan Minfu

BAGHDAD, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Suddenly, a flash of fire ripped through the night sky, my room bucked, and I could feel a violent pressure wave tearing through the building.

It took just one skipped heartbeat of silence for the reality to take hold: the hotel I call half a home was under attack.

In no time, a fine cloud of debris filled the air, along with the acrid, unmistakable smell of gunpowder.

The explosion came without warning late Monday. I glanced at the clock on my table: 9:55 p.m. With hands still trembling, I sent out a news flash, grabbed my camera, and rushed downstairs.

My residence is the Al-Rasheed Hotel, a landmark nestled within Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. In the lobby, the usual calm had evaporated, replaced by a crowd of anxious guests.

Outside, sirens began their frantic wail. "There might be a second strike!" shouted a security guard, ushering us toward a temporary shelter in the hotel's underground gym.

Before descending, I stole a glance back at the building. A plume of smoke drifted from the roof. The exterior, at least from where I stood, did not appear to have suffered severe structural damage, but the air felt fundamentally changed.

In the basement, people spoke in hushed, uneasy tones. "What happened?" "Was it a drone?"

The incident was the latest episode in a rapidly escalating conflict across the Middle East.

Since Feb. 28, when the United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran, U.S. and Israeli forces have conducted repeated strikes inside Iraq against Iran-backed militia groups, inflicting heavy casualties. In turn, Iran and its Iraqi militia allies have responded with drones and missiles targeting U.S. military installations, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and the Consulate General in Erbil.

About 30 minutes after the blast, I ventured back out. Iraqi security forces had cordoned off the hotel. Firefighters and emergency responders were on the scene. Iraq's interior minister arrived shortly after.

A military officer told me that a preliminary assessment indicated a drone had struck the rooftop and that the intended target might have been the nearby U.S. embassy. No casualties had been reported.

The Al-Rasheed is more than a hotel; it is a hub for Arab embassies, foreign diplomats, and staff from international organizations.

"I never imagined this place would become a target," a Gulf diplomat told me. "I never imagined the war could be this close."

When I returned to my room, a thin layer of black dust had settled over everything -- the desk, the computer, and the television. A pen had been knocked from the side table and lay on the floor. The smell of gunpowder had not yet cleared.

Around midnight, the U.S. embassy's C-RAM close-range air defense system was activated multiple times. Interceptor rounds streaked across the sky in bright, rapid bursts, and the percussion of the blasts rolled across the city like distant thunder.

In two years of reporting from Iraq, I have listened to countless people describe what it means to live in the shadow of war. I have met those who spent their entire childhoods in displacement, and those who can read the direction of danger in the first second of an explosion.

On that Monday night, as smoke drifted through my window, I began to grasp, in a small way, what so many Iraqis have endured for decades.

Wars are started far from here. The smoke, though, doesn't know this. That night, it came for me too.  ■