A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi civilian Thursday when he stepped from his car near Kirkuk in northern Iraq, police said.
According to AFP, Abbas Omar Mohammad had stopped at around 6:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) on the road between Kirkuk and Sulaymaniya, Major Khodayer Ahmad Hassun, police chief at Azadi, north of Kirkuk, said. The road is also used by US occupation forces the apparent target of the bomb.
Meanwhile, the death toll rose to eight in a car bomb attack that destroyed a Baghdad restaurant crowded with New Year's Eve revelers, officials said Thursday. Three Los Angeles Times reporters were among the 35 wounded. The newspaper said the three reporters and five local staff members suffered cuts and other wounds that did not appear life-threatening.
Elsewhere in the Iraqi town of Baquba, some 65 kilometers north of Baghdad, some 1,000 American troops and more than 350 Iraqi policemen carried out a massive overnight operation looking for members of a Wahhabi Muslim cell blamed for attacks on US-led occupation troops.
Colonel David Hogg of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division told Reuters American forces arrested nine of 11 "wanted guerrilla leaders" and Iraqi police arrested 16 of 20 of their footsoldiers. A large haul of weapons was also seized in the raids, Reuters added.
U.S. officers in Iraq had feared Iraqi resistance fighters would carry out wide-scale assaults over the New Year period to deliver a message that they would press on with their effort to drive out occupying forces. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
