ISIL Claims Responsibility For 3 Deadly Iraq Bombings

Baghdad: Jihadist militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has claimed responsibility for all three attacks in Baghdad on Wednesday in which 93 people killed and more than 165 wounded. According to media reports it is one of the deadliest days in Iraq this year.

One of the deadly bombings hit the northern area of Kadhimiya and the other went off in Jamia, in the west.

An SUV packed with explosives exploded near a beauty salon in a market at rush hour in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood, killing at least 61 people and wounding more than 100 others. Most of the victims were women.

Karim Salih, a 45-year old grocer said. “It was such a thunderous explosion that jolted the ground,” he added. “The force of the explosion threw me for meters (yards) away and I lost conscious for a few minutes.” He said he was not injured, but two of his workers were wounded.

In the past two weeks, ISIL has claimed responsibility for two attacks First, a car bomb, targeting an open-air market which killed at least 23 people and injured 38 in order to target the Shia community in and around Baghdad. The other attack was by a car bombing targeting Shia pilgrims commemorating the death anniversary of an 8th-century imam, in which more than 18 people were killed.

ISIL also claimed a twin suicide bombing in Sadr City that killed 70 people in February. According to the UN, at least 741 Iraqis were killed in April in the ongoing violence, a sharp decline from the previous month.