Militant attacks kill at least nine

02 January 2004
Two attacks in Iraq have left at least nine people dead, US officials said on 1 January. A bomb attack on a crowded restaurant in suburban Baghdad killed eight Iraqis. The attack on the Nabil restaurant in the Karrada district of the capital, which was caused by a car bomb, injured four members of the US' LA Times daily. A US official said that the bomber was also killed in the blast. 'It is starting to shape up as someone who parked the vehicle and ran away and detonated it by remote control, but died fleeing the strong blast,' an officer said. The Nabil restaurant was a popular destination for wealthy Iraqis and foreign workers operating in Baghdad. 'This is a cowardly attack,' Iraqi deputy interior minister Ahmed Kadhem told journalists, blaming the attack on Saddam Hussein loyalists. 'They want to steal the happiness from the Iraqis. They want to steal the first day of the New Year.'

In northern Iraq, Adil al-Hadadi, a lawyer with links to the US-led coalition, was assassinated on 28 December by masked gunmen outside his home in Mosul, US officials said on 1 January. Al-Hadadi's killing was the third assassination in late December. 'It is always the same thing: a drive-by shooting by masked men in a particular make of car,' said a local police officer, linking the three shootings. A US official in the city said that the dead man had had regular contact with coalition authorities in Mosul 'He had to visit our offices frequently for this,' said a coalition official. 'If you look at the killings of all three men, the common denominator between them all is that they were part of the governing body in some form - but there is a wider programme of intimidation going on.'

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