Scores killed in Baghdad suicide attack
A SUICIDE car bombing claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping district on Sunday, killing about 120 people in the deadliest single attack in 2016 in Iraq’s capital.
The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week’s holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group’s control.
The bombing also wounded more than 130 people, security and medical officials said.
Prime Minister Haider alAbadi visited the site of the attack and vowed “punishment” for its perpetrators.
The huge blast set buildings in the area ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them 12 hours later. Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as firefighters worked at the site.
Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his family’s shop were killed in the attack, their bodies burned so badly that they could not be identified. “I will return to the battlefront. At least there I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here I don’t know who I’m fighting,” Ali said.
IS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the group’s “security operations”.
The jihadist group said the blast targeted members of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and elsewhere.
Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad had killed at least one person and wounded four on Sunday, but the cause of the blast was disputed.
Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently occupied with operations elsewhere. But the group has struck back against Iraqi civilians after suffering military setbacks.
A video posted on social media showed men — apparently angry at the government’s failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada — throwing rocks toward what was said to be Abadi’s convoy.
In May, the capital was rocked by blasts that killed more than 150 people in seven days.
With thousands of vehicles moving in and out of the city each day, such bombings are difficult to prevent. But there are also flaws in Iraqi security measures in the city, especially the continued use of fake bomb detectors at checkpoints years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain.
Iraqi forces recaptured Fallujah, a city 50km west of Baghdad, from the jihadists late in June. Iraqi forces launched an operation in May to recapture the city. The defeat of IS was compounded by devastating air strikes targeting jihadist forces as they sought to flee the Fallujah area. With Fallujah retaken, Iraqi forces are setting their sights on the second city Mosul, the last major population centre held by IS in Iraq.
In addition to Mosul, IS still holds territory in Nineveh province, of which it is the capital, as well as areas in Kirkuk to its west and Anbar to its south.
I will return to the battlefront. At least there I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here I don’t know who I’m fighting