BAGHDAD BOMBING KILLS 12
BAGHDAD: A car bomb ripped through a busy market area in eastern Baghdad on Monday killing at least 12 people, Iraqi officials said.
The explosives-laden car went off at the wholesale Jamila market in Baghdad’s Shiite district of Sadr City, a police officer said. The explosion also wounded 28 other people, he added, saying the death toll was expected to rise further.
A medical official confirmed the casualty figures. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to journalists. A plume of thick black smoke billowed from the area and people were running away in panic. At the sitew, twisted metal and shards of glass littered the pavement, along with vegetables and other goods sold at the market.
“It was a thunderous explosion,” said Hussein Kadhim, a 35-year old porter and father of three who was wounded in his right leg. “It sounds that the security situation is still uncontrollable and I’m afraid that such bombings will make a comeback.” At least one soldier was seen being evacuated from the scene, which was sealed off by security forces.
The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility in an online statement on its media arms, the Aamaq news agency. The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the statement. Sunni militants consider Shiites to be apostates and Shiite-dominated areas are prime targets for IS.
The bombing came as Usbacked Iraqi forces are in final stages of recapturing the northern town of Tal Afar from IS, about 150 kilometres from Syria’s border. On Sunday, Iraqi military said it had “fully liberated” Tal Afar’s town center from IS militants. On Monday, the troops fought at the outskirts of al-ayadia district, about 10 kilometres northwest of Tal Afar, where most of the militants fled. However, fighting was ongoing in al’Ayadiya, a small area 11 kilometres northwest of the city, where militants who fled the district’s city center were hiding out, Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said.
Tal Afar was one of the few remaining towns in Iraq still in IS hands following the liberation of Mosul in July from the Islamic State group. The Sunni militant group still controls the northern town of Hawija, as well as Qaim, Rawa and Ana, in western Iraq near the Syrian border. Tens of thousands of people are believed to have fled in the weeks before the battle started.
Remaining civilians were threatened with death by the militants, according to aid organizations and residents who managed to leave.
Tal Afar has experienced cycles of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi’ites after the Us-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has produced some of Islamic State’s most senior commanders.
Meanwhile, Iraqi security soldiers have discovered a detention facility in the western flank of Tal Afar, which members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group used to incarcerate people and subject the detainees to various forms of torture.
The Arabic-language alSumaria satellite television network reported on Monday that government forces had found the prison in the recently-liberated al-saad neighborhood of the city, located 63 kilometers west of Mosul.
The building incorporated several rooms, where Daesh extremists apparently used to hold civilians in captivity and torment them. Iraqi security forces could recover dozens of boxes of tablets in addition to narcotics from the site.
Daesh had installed a comprehensive CCTV surveillance system across the building for the principal purposes of keeping an eye on the movements of the detainees.
The media bureau of Popular Mobilization Units, commonly known by the Arabic word Hashd al-sha’abi, announced in a statement that soldiers from the 16th Division of the Iraqi Army had reclaimed control over Kharaj al-asheq village southwest of al-‘ayadiya district, which lies 11 kilometers northwest of Tal Afar.