Twin Baghdad blasts leave at least 32 dead
BAGHDAD: Two men blew themselves up in a crowded Baghdad market on Thursday, killing at least 32 people in Iraq’s first big suicide bombings in three years, authorities said, describing it as a possible sign of the reactivation of Islamic State (IS).
Reuters journalists arriving after the blasts saw pools of blood and discarded shoes at the site, a clothing market in Tayaran Square in the centre of the city. Health authorities said at least 110 people had been wounded.
“One (bomber) came, fell to the ground and started complaining ‘my stomach is hurting’ and he pressed the detonator in his hand. It exploded immediately. People were torn to pieces,” said a street vendor who did not give his name.
Suicide attacks, once an almost daily occurrence in the Iraqi capital, had halted in recent years since Islamic State fighters were defeated in 2017, part of an overall improvement in security that has brought normal life back to Baghdad.
“Daesh (IS) terrorist groups might be standing behind the attacks,” civil defence chief Maj Gen Kadhim Salman told reporters, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
A video taken from a rooftop and circulated on social media purported to show the second blast scattering people gathered in the area.
Images shared online, which Reuters could not independently verify, showed several dead and wounded.
Thursday’s attack took place in the same market that was struck in the last big attack, in January, 2018, when at least 27 people were killed.