Baghdad: On Sunday, over 130 people, including children and women, were killed in two overnight bombings in Baghdad, most of them in busy areas, as residents shopped ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr.
In the deadliest bombing — the most lethal single attack in Baghdad this year — which hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the centre of Baghdad, 125 shoppers were killed and over 100 others wounded, according to police and medics. The second blast — of an improvised explosive device — in eastern Baghdad left five people dead and 16 others wounded. It was earlier reported that a bobby-trapped car blew up in the area. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Karada street in the mainly Shia area thronged with crowds shopping ahead of the Eid festival.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated by its supporters online.The group, which has claimed numerous deadly bombings in mainly Shia areas of Baghdad, alleged that a suicide bomber targeted a crowd of Shia Muslims.
There were fears the death toll could rise as more bodies could be lying under the rubble of devastated buildings.
ISIL still controls Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west. At the height of the extremist group’s rise to power in 2014, IS snatched nearly a third of the country out of government control. The militants are estimated to control only 14 per cent of Iraqi territory now.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi condemned the bombing and declared three days of mourning across the country after visiting the scene of the attack. Jan Kubis, the UN envoy for Iraq, said the attack was an attempt by ISIL to avenge losses on the battlefield.
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