Bomb at Baghdad restaurant kills five

A suspected suicide bomb tore apart a Baghdad restaurant crowded with New Year revellers yesterday, killing at least five people, Iraqi police and witnesses said.

Reuters correspondents at the scene said the front of the Nabil restaurant in the Arasat district of Baghdad had been destroyed and the building was in flames. Witnesses said at least 30 people had been inside when the bomb went off.

The restaurant, in one of Baghdad's most upmarket districts, is frequented by wealthy Iraqis and is popular with foreigners.

US-backed security forces had increased patrols in the capital due to fears that insurgents could choose the New Year period to launch attacks against coalition forces.

Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, the commander of the 1st Armoured Division responsible for the capital, told reporters earlier yesterday his men would be on high alert for potential attacks over New Year after a series of assaults on Christmas Day.

At least five Iraqis were also killed and more than 20 wounded yesterday when gunfire erupted during a demonstration in Kirkuk, where Kurds are bidding for more control of the oil-rich northern city.

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 at a nearby hospital 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 is the latest episode of violence among Kurds and others vying for power in the city, where Saddam Hussein forced out Kurds and Turkish-speaking Turkmens to Arabise the site of Iraq's richest oil reserves.

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.

That plan is bitterly opposed by Turkmens and Arabs. About 12 people were killed in August when protests over the sacking of a Turkmen shrine in the ethnically divided town of Tuz Khurmatu - where Turkmens accuse Kurds of theft and intimidation - spread to Kirkuk.