US soldiers and Iraqi police were on high alert on Thursday for more attacks to mark the start of 2004 after a car bomb ripped through a Baghdad restaurant, killing five New Year revellers.
The bomb devastated the upscale Nabil restaurant around two and a half hours before midnight, scattering debris and wrecked cars across the street outside and wounding more than 20 people including three foreign journalists with the Los Angeles Times.
US commanders 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 fugitive dictator Saddam Hussein in December.
PHOTO: EPA
Christmas Day was marked by a series of rocket and mortar attacks in Baghdad.
"We always take a posture of extra vigilance on key dates in the calendar," Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the US 1st Armored Division responsible for security in Baghdad, told reporters on Wednesday.
"We have gathered intelligence on what could happen over the next 72 hours ... and you can be sure the 1st AD will be ready to do what it gets paid to do."
He added: "We have only one New Year's resolution and that is to remain resolute in our efforts to provide safety and security to the Iraqi people."
Restaurant workers said more than 40 diners were inside when the bomb was detonated.
US troops and Iraqi ambulances, police and firemen rushed to the scene.
"This is a criminal attack and a terrorist act by people who have no morals or ethics," said Iraqi police chief Ahmed Qadim Ibrahim. "It was a car bomb filled with TNT explosives."
Washington blames Saddam loyalists and foreign Muslim militants for attacks on occupying troops, international organizations and Iraqis working with them.
At least 327 US soldiers have been killed in action since the war began in March, 212 of them in guerrilla attacks since major combat was declared over on May 1.
The streets of Baghdad were mostly deserted when 2004 began at midnight -- most people scurried home after the restaurant bomb blast reverberated through the city centre, rattling windows of buildings more than a kilometer away.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, ethnic tension simmered after Arabs and Turkmens were involved in a violent confrontation with Kurds on Wednesday that left five dead.
They were killed in shooting that erupted after several thousand Arab and Turkmen protesters marched on the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan to protest about a Kurdish proposal to make the ethnically mixed oil-rich city the capital of an autonomous region in northern Iraq controlled by Kurds.
Both sides blamed each other for the shooting.
During Saddam's rule many Kurds and Turkmens were forced out of Kirkuk to as Saddam attmpted to "Arabize" the site of Iraq's richest oil reserves.
But Kurds, who have controlled an autonomous region in northern Iraq since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, have extended their influence since the fall of Saddam, angering Turkmens and Arabs and alarming Turkey, which has long battled a Kurdish separatist insurgency within its own borders.
Turkey sees itself as the protector of the Turkmen minority in Iraq and is deeply opposed to any strengthening of Kurdish power and influence in northern Iraq.
A Foreign Ministry statement said Ankara was "deeply saddened" by the killings, and blamed the Kurds.
"Certain groups should not be given the chance to damage the desired atmosphere of peace and national reconciliation with their statements and actions based on ethnic nationalism," it said.
"No one should ignore the fact that all the cities and regions of Iraq belong to all Iraqis," the statement said.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS