Baghdad Suicide Car Bombing: Who was behind deadly terrorist attack
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BAGHDAD, July 3, (APP/AFP): A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group ripped through a busy Baghdad shopping
district Sunday, killing at least 75 people in the deadliest single
attack this year 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 Ramzan.
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 al-Abadi visited the site of the attack and vowed "punishment" for its perpetrators, his office said.
The huge blast set buildings in the area ablaze, and firemen were still working to extinguish them some 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 told AFP.
IS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of the group's "ongoing security operations".
Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad 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.
A bystander could be heard cursing at Abadi in another video.
