Baghdad: On Sunday, over 130 people, including
children and women, were killed in two overnight bombings in Baghdad, most of
them in busy areas, as residents shopped ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr.
In the deadliest bombing — the most lethal single
attack in Baghdad this year — which hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the
centre of Baghdad, 125 shoppers were killed and over 100 others wounded,
according to police and medics. The second blast — of an improvised explosive
device — in eastern Baghdad left five people dead and 16 others wounded. It was
earlier reported that a bobby-trapped car blew up in the area. No group has so
far claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Karada street in the mainly Shia area thronged
with crowds shopping ahead of the Eid festival.
The
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed
responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated by its supporters
online.The group, which has claimed numerous deadly bombings in mainly Shia
areas of Baghdad, alleged that a suicide bomber targeted a crowd of Shia
Muslims.
There
were fears the death toll could rise as more bodies could be lying under the
rubble of devastated buildings.
ISIL
still controls Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, as well as significant
patches of territory in the country's north and west. At the height of the
extremist group’s rise to power in 2014, IS snatched nearly a third of the
country out of government control. The militants are estimated to control only
14 per cent of Iraqi territory now.
Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi condemned the bombing and declared three days of
mourning across the country after visiting the scene of the attack. Jan Kubis,
the UN envoy for Iraq, said the attack was an attempt by ISIL to avenge losses
on the battlefield.
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