At least eight people were killed and some 25 others injured when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a cafe in the Iraqi capital on Thursday evening, official sources said.

 

Residents gather at the scene of a car bomb attack in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad Oct. 11, 2007. A car bomb targeting the traffic police chief of Kirkuk killed at least seven people and wounded 50 others, the latest in a spate of attacks on senior police officials in northern Iraq.

 

The incident took place at 9 PM (1800 GMT) shortly after the Eid al-Fitr holiday began while young men were relaxing at the cafe in New Baghdad area in the southeast of the capital, according to the sources.

 

They said that the wounded, some in a critical state, were taken to a hospital called Al-Kindi in central Baghdad.

 

Earlier in the day, seven people were wounded in two roadside bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, an Interior Ministry source said.

 

"Roadside bomb went off near a US patrol in the Iskan neighborhood in western Baghdad in the afternoon, wounding five civilians," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

 

It was unclear whether the US patrol sustain any casualty as the troops immediately cordoned off the area, preventing the Iraqi police from approaching the scene, he said.

 

Meanwhile, another roadside bomb detonated near a police patrol in Baghdad's northwestern neighborhood of Shulla, damaging a police vehicle and wounding two policemen, the source added.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 12, 2007)