Picture that shows the mess Blair left ... 125 killed as IS strike in Baghdad
AT least 130 people have been killed and about 180 injured in two bomb blasts in the Iraqi capital, authorities said yesterday.
A truck bomb in a busy shopping area of Baghdad killed 125, including 15 children, and left dozens more with horrific injuries.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing in Karrada, a mainly Shia area, in the deadliest such attack in Iraq this year.
A second blast elsewhere in Baghdad killed another five people. At least 500 Iraqis have died in bombings this year.
Both attacks targeted families and young people out at restaurants, cafes and in shopping centres after dark after breaking their dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast. A suicide bomber blew up an explosives-laden pick-up truck in Karrada, where most of the victims were inside a multi-storey shopping centre.
Firefighters and volunteers wrapped the dead in blankets and sheets and carried their bodies out of the wreckage for burial.
Street vendor Karim Sami, 35, witnessed the blast. He said: ‘It was like an earthquake… I saw a fireball with a thunderous bombing.’
The father-of-three added: ‘We are in a state of war and these places are targeted. The security can’t focus on the war [against IS] and forget Baghdad.’
Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi visited the scene of the devastation and was jeered at by angry crowds, amid criticism that his government has failed to combat deteriorating security in the capital.
Video posted online appeared to show his convoy being pelted with stones and shoes by protesters.
No group has claimed responsibility for the second bomb, in the northern Shaab area of Baghdad – also a Shia area. But experts said it, too, bore the hallmarks of an IS attack.