Baghdad suicide blasts kill dozens

baghdad — Two suicide bombers ripped through a busy market area in central Baghdad on Saturday, shattering a relative lull in attacks in the capital and marring preparations for New Year celebrations.

The bombers attacked the Al Sinek area, killing at least 27 people and wounding 53, a police colonel said. An officer in the interior ministry and a hospital official confirmed the toll.

“Many of the victims were people from the spare parts shops in the area, they were gathered near a cart selling breakfast when the explosions went off,” said Ibrahim Mohammed Ali, who owns a nearby shop.

Torn clothes and mangled iron were strewn across the ground in pools of blood at the site of the wreckage near Rasheed street, a photographer said.

“Twin terrorist attacks were carried out by suicide bombers in Al Sinek neighbourhood,” an official from Baghdad operations command said.

The area is packed with shops, workshops and wholesale markets and usually teeming with delivery trucks and labourers unloading vans or wheeling carts around.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for what was the deadliest attack to hit the capital since mid-October but the Daesh group has claimed nearly all such bombings. Baghdad has been on high alert since the start on October 17 of an offensive, Iraq’s largest military operation in years, to retake the militants stronghold of Mosul.

Daesh has tried to hit back with attacks across the country but has had little success in Baghdad. Saturday’s twin bombings were the deadliest in the capital since the start of the Mosul offensive.

Huge crowds were expected to gather on Saturday evening in Baghdad’s streets to celebrate the New Year for only the second time since the lifting in 2015 of a yearsold curfew. Last year revellers turned out for celebrations that lasted most of the night despite an already tense security backdrop.

A year on, the Daesh group appears to be on its last legs and is defending its last bastions in Iraq but the going has been tough for the tens of thousands of Iraqi forces on the ground. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi had vowed earlier in 2016 that his forces would rid the country of Daesh by the end of the year but the Mosul operation has been slower moving that expected. — AFP

— AFP Iraqi forces launch a rocket in Mosul’s eastern Al Intisar neighbourhood during a military operation against the Daesh group. Iraqi forces have stepped up their efforts to reclaim the Daesh group’s last major stronghold in the country.

Reuters Iraqi security forces inspect the site of a bomb attack at a market in central Baghdad on Saturday. —