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BAGHDAD, Dec 31: A suspected suicide bombing devastated a Baghdad restaurant crowded with New Year revellers on Wednesday, killing at least five people, Iraqi police said.
Reuters journalists at the scene said the front of the Nabil restaurant in Baghdad's Arasat district had been destroyed and that the building was in flames.
At least 30 people were inside when the blast occurred, witnesses said. Ahmed Qader, a senior Iraqi policeman, said the bomb may have been carried into the restaurant.
US helicopters circled overhead and ambulances raced to the scene as US troops and Iraqi rescuers clawed through rubble looking for survivors.
Wrecked cars were scattered across the road. US-backed security forces had increased patrols in the Iraqi capital due to fears that militants would choose the New Year period to launch new attacks on US troops and Iraqis working with the US-led administration in Baghdad.
Washington blames attacks on supporters of former president Saddam Hussain and foreign militants. Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the US 1st Armoured Division, told reporters earlier on Wednesday his troops would be on high alert for potential attacks over the next few days after a series of assaults on Christmas Day.
FIVE DEATHS IN KIRKUK PROTEST: The blast occurred hours after at least five Iraqis were killed and more than 20 wounded when gunfire erupted during a demonstration in Iraq's northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Several thousand Arab and Turkmen protesters marched on the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two main Kurdish factions, and surrounded the building, chanting "No to federalism, Kirkuk is Iraqi".
Kirkuk's chief of police said two people were killed in a burst of gunfire. Doctors said three more people died later and at least 20 were wounded. Several wounded said they had been shot at by PUK peshmerga fighters.
But Jalal Jawhar, head of the PUK office in Kirkuk, said Turkmen protesters opened fire on the PUK offices, wounding three members of Kirkuk's largely Kurdish police.
The chief of police said his men had not fired on anyone. Witnesses said US tanks and armoured vehicles quickly moved in to seal off the area, fanning out near the PUK offices and a local government building to keep protesters at bay.
The incident was the latest violence among Kurds and others vying for power in the city, where former president Saddam Hussain forced out Kurds and Turkish-speaking Turkmens to Arabise the site of Iraq's richest oil reserves.
KURDS SEEK AUTONOMY: Kurds on Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council are proposing that a future federal Iraqi government grant broad autonomy to the northern zone, with Kirkuk as its capital and having a say over other areas with large Kurdish populations.-Reuters
