Bomb blast kills two at popular Baghdad eatery

Baghdad, July 2: Adnan Imad and seven colleagues had just sat down for breakfast at a popular Baghdad restaurant morning when a bomb blew in the windows and sent glass shards slicing through the packed restaurant.

Imad, 23, escaped with shrapnel wounds to his left elbow. His colleague Thualfiqar Yassin, 27, suffered more serious head injuries. But they were the lucky ones. The Interior Ministry said the bomb killed two people and wounded 13.

Imad and Yassin said they had just finished a night shift when they decided to join their colleagues at the Baghdadi Kuba, a breakfast eatery in the Karrada district in central Baghdad.

After sitting down to eat ''all I can remember is the sound of the explosion and pieces of glass flying in'', Imad said.

When he stumbled outside, dazed and bleeding, he saw a cigarette vendor, who had been standing outside the eatery, blackened by the blast but still alive.

Cars were ablaze and debris littered the street. The parked car bomb had destroyed the facade of the restaurant and those of adjacent shops.

Reuters footage showed the mangled wreck of one car immediately outside the eatery. A Reuters cameraman counted six cars destroyed by fire.

Insurgents fighting to topple Iraq's Shi'ite Islamist-led government often target restaurants in Baghdad, frequently those popular with policemen or soldiers.

Imad said there were no policemen in the Baghdadi at the time of the blast but he knew of a number of government employees who ate there.

Reuters

Related Stories