BAGHDAD // Four people were killed and 25 were wounded when a car bomb exploded near a popular restaurant in northwestern Baghdad today, police said. The explosion in the Shiite district of Shula occurred while policemen and labourers were eating breakfast. The casualties included both policemen and civilians, police said. The Shiite-led Iraqi government had declared today a national holiday to show what it said was its solidarity with other religious groups in Iraq.
Violence has dropped sharply in Iraq, where the US-led invasion in 2003 unleashed years of sectarian and insurgent attacks. *Reuters