Eight people were killed in a powerful car bombing on a popular restaurant in the Iraqi capital on New Year's Eve, the US military said on Thursday. 

"I can confirm that eight people have been killed," a coalition spokesman said, without disclosing the nationalities of the victims.

Earlier, the Iraqi interior ministry put the death toll at five, all Iraqis, and the wounded at 24, including three western journalists, in a powerful explosion that rocked the Nabil Restaurant in Baghdad at 9:30 pm (1830 GMT) on Wednesday.

The force of the blast destroyed the front of the Restaurant and damaged nearby buildings and parked cars in the Arasat district in central Baghdad.

However, Iraqi police said it was still too early to identify whether it was a suicide car bombing as many suspected. 

(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2004)