Islamic State militants kill dozens
in two major attacks on Baghdad, demonstrating the group’s ability to disrupt the Iraqi capital even as it loses ground.
BAGHDAD — Islamic State militants killed dozens Sunday in two major attacks on Baghdad, bombing a market and assaulting security forces on the city’s outskirts in a demonstration of the group’s ability to disrupt the Iraqi capital even as it loses ground.
Six car bombs were used in the early morning attack on Abu Ghraib, a neighborhood on the city’s western edge where the militants seized a grain silo, Iraq’s Defense Ministry said. Later in the day, a double suicide bombing hit a market in the largely Shiite district of Sadr City, killing at least 28 people, according to Iraqi media.
The Abu Ghraib assault marked the most significant attack on the area in more than a year and came despite an ongoing operation by Iraqi security forces to push back militants from the city’s western edge.
Still, the Islamic State has lost 30 percent of its territory in the country since its 2014 peak, and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sunday night said the group is lashing out because it is under pressure.
The bombing in Sadr City, following another Thursday that hit a Shiite mosque in the Baghdad neighborhood of Shula, “increase the resolve and determination” of Iraqi security forces, al-Abadi said.
The Islamic State managed to hold the grain silo on the edge of Abu Ghraib for hours before counterterrorism forces were called in. Maj. Gen. Saad Harbiya, of Baghdad Operations Command, said most of the attackers were foreigners, with 20 besieged in the silo at one point in the afternoon. He said security forces suffered a “simple” number of casualties, declining to give a figure. Seventeen members of the Iraqi security forces were killed, according to Reuters.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks.