47 killed in IS suicide attack at checkpoint near Baghdad
HILLA: A suicide truck bomb attack claimed by the Islamic State group killed 47 people at a crowded checkpoint south of Baghdad on Sunday, the deadliest such attack in Iraq this year.
The blast completely destroyed the checkpoint manned by security forces guarding the northern entrance to Hilla, an area that had recently been spared such attacks.
“The suicide bomber used an explosives-laden truck, at a time when there was dense traffic,” Faleh al-Radhi, the head of the security committee at Babil provincial council, said.
A doctor at Hilla hospital put the number of people killed by the blast at 47, including around 20 members of the security forces, and said at least 72 people were also wounded. Radhi and police officers confirmed the casualty toll, the heaviest from any car bomb attack in Iraq this year.
The blast went off at around 1:00 pm (1000 GMT), a time of day when vehicles are usually bumper-to-bumper, waiting to be checked by security personnel.
An AFP photographer at the scene said that there was almost nothing left of the checkpoint.
He said one distraught man was asking rescuers, survivors and journalists to help him retrieve the body of his baby child from under the mangled wreckage of a car.
“When I got to the scene, there were people whose clothes were still on fire, they were screaming,” said Hamza Kadhem, a 35-year-old labourer who was near when the blast went off.
The doctor at Hilla hospital said at least 11 of the wounded were in a very serious condition.