Five Iraqis killed in restaurant blast

A car bomb ripped through an elegant Baghdad restaurant crowded with diners at a New Year’s Eve party killing five Iraqis and wounding 35 others, including at least one Briton and two Americans.

“The glass came flying. Everything else blew up. People were blown apart,” said Basam Sarhan, a 25-year-old baker working in the kitchen at the back of the restaurant, located in a smart Baghdad neighbourhood.

The Los Angeles Times said three of its reporters and four local staff members suffered wounds that did not appear life-threatening.

The reporters were Chris Kraul, a correspondent who most recently headed the Times’ Mexico City bureau, Tracy Wilkinson, the paper’s Rome bureau chief and correspondent Ann Simmons, who formerly was the Times’ bureau chief in Nairobi, Kenya. Simmons is British.

Some reports indicated a second Briton may have been caught in the blast, but this was unconfirmed.

It was not clear who was behind the explosion, which came despite tightened security in the capital over the holiday as military officials expected insurgent attacks.

Two other bombs exploded earlier yesterday near US military convoys in the capital – one also a car bomb, the other an explosive hidden in bushes outside another restaurant.

After the evening explosion, sirens wailed and helicopters buzzed overhead as ambulances and US soldiers converged on the Nabil restaurant, a popular spot with foreigners that advertised a New Year’s Eve party with live music and belly dancing.

Several cars outside the restaurant were wrecked and in flames. Gunfire was heard after the explosion, which left a large crater on a side street near the building.

Five Iraqis were killed, according to Lt Gen Ahmed Kadhem, deputy Iraqi interior minister and Baghdad chief of police. The wounded included 32 Iraqis and several westerners, police and hospital officials said.

A young boy at the restaurant said: “It was a car bomb. It went off in front of us. It was very powerful.”

Blood streaming down his face, a man named Khalil said, ”I don’t know what it was, whether it was a rocket or a bomb. Why did they have to do it to us?”

One witness, Ahmed Hassanain, said a white Toyota Corolla car drove by the area five or six times before the bombing.

The last time it passed, he said, the guard at the restaurant shot at it. It drove away. Two minutes later, there was an explosion. He said he did not know whether it was the Corolla that blew up.

“These people are terrorists,” Hassanain said. “Nobody here supports them.”

Outside the restaurant, a young man and a woman with blood on her face and shoulders wept and hugged each other.

She said they were a family of six having New Year’s dinner in the building next door when the blast ripped away the side wall. Her uncle was taken to a hospital, she said.

The area of the blast is frequented by rich Iraqis, and is lined with chic shops selling items such as cosmetics, curtains and upholstery.

The Nabil restaurant serves fine wine and other expensive alcoholic drinks – a rarity in Baghdad – and a menu of Western and Arabic dishes.