Scores die after ‘botched Iraqi airstrike’

IRAQ: An airstrike presumed to have been carried out by the Iraqi air force has hit a market and shopping street in the Islamic State-held border town of Qaim, killing scores of people, according to the speaker of the country’s parliament.

Details of the strike, which happened on Wednesday afternoon (local time), were not fully clear.

However, a video released by an online media channel loyal to Isis showed the supposed scene with charred and mangled bodies, including those of children, lying in the wreckage.

Shop fronts had been blasted away and stalls were overturned and smouldering.

The incident caused outrage in the Iraqi parliament, with the speaker, Salim al-Jabouri, demanding an inquiry.

Jabouri is a Sunni Muslim, and is often at odds with the Shia-led government of Haider al-Abadi.

‘‘The speaker holds the government responsible for such mistakes, asking them to open an immediate inquiry to find out the truth of the incident and to guarantee that civilians are not targeted again,’’ his office said in a statement.

Qaim is one of the few towns still under Isis control in the west of Anbar province, close to the Syrian border.

Anbar is predominantly Sunni and has been the heartland of jihadist activity in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003.

Jabouri, like most members of the Sunni political establishment, publicly reviles Isis but also attacks the government and its allied Shia militias for discriminating against the Sunni minority.

They are particularly concerned that the fight against Isis will lead to retaliation against the community, from which it has drawn its support.

The US-led coalition has also conducted bombing strikes across Isis territory, including in the border area, but it said that none of its jets had been operating in the area at the time of the raid.

The Iraqi Joint Operations Command denounced the claims as a ‘‘fake story’’ coming from Isiscontrolled territory.

It said that its jets had conducted two raids in the area on Wednesday afternoon, targeting locations where up to 65 ‘‘terrorists and suicide bombers’’ were sheltering.

It claimed that most were foreign jihadists. It alleged that the scenes in the market street were caused by an Isis car bomb that was detonated either accidentally or for propaganda purposes.

Other reports said that 80 people had been injured or killed in the strike.

Twelve women and nine children were said to be among the dead.

- The Times