Crowds played music and waved Iraqi flags early yesterday morning as they gathered amid heavy security in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square to celebrate an end to the nightly curfew.

Small groups of young men rode around the capital on motorcycles and in cars, cheering and waving flags.

Baghdad’s decade-old nightly curfew ended just hours after bombs exploded in and around the capital, killing at least 40 people in a stark warning of the dangers still ahead from the Islamic State group (Isis).

The deadliest happened in the New Baghdad district, where a suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a street filled with ironmongers and a restaurant, killing 22 people.

“The restaurant was full of young people, children and women when the suicide bomber blew himself up. Many were killed,” said witness Mohamed Saeed.

Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the bomber had targeted Shi’ites.