New year dinner blast in Iraq kills 8

Up to eight people were killed in a New Year’s Eve bomb attack on a Baghdad restaurant and more than 30 wounded, US Military investigat...

Up to eight people were killed in a New Year’s Eve bomb attack on a Baghdad restaurant and more than 30 wounded, US Military investigators said on Thursday as they hunted for clues among the rubble.

The car bomb devastated the upmarket Nabil restaurant around two hours before midnight, scattering debris and wrecked cars across the street outside and sparking a blaze.

‘‘Right now the death toll we believe is six to eight with atleast 30 walking wounded who were treated at local hospitals,’’ Lieutenant Colonel Peter Jones, the senior US officer at the scene, said outside the building.

‘‘It was an indiscriminate targeting of Iraqi individuals as they were going to celebrate New Year.’’

Much of the building in the Arasat district of Baghdad and a nearby house were destroyed and the restaurant was in flames. The restaurant, in one of Baghdad’s most upmarket districts, is frequented by wealthy Iraqis and is popular with foreigners. A New Year party was under way when the bomb struck, witnesses said. Three Los Angeles Times reporters were among those injured in the blast. Suffering cuts and bruises in the blast were Tracy Wilkinson, the Times Rome bureau Chief, correspondent Ann Simmons and Chris Kraul, who until recently headed the paper’s Mexico City office.

All three had been assigned to the Baghdad bureau.

‘‘So far it’s cuts and bruises but we don’t have a complete report,’’Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet said, adding that all three were taken to a military hospital for treatment.

He said Wilkinson had telephoned the paper and was in good spirits despite her injuries.

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Jones said the blast was caused by a car bomb parked next to the restaurant.

Following the blast, with most people rushing home, the streets of Baghdad wore a deserted look when 2004 began.

US commanders in Iraq had feared guerrillas would launch attacks over the New Year period to send a message that they would press on with their campaign to drive out occupying troops despite the capture of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. — (Reuters)