The death toll from Friday’s suicide auto bombing in the country’s eastern Diyala province rose to more than 100, Iraqi officials said, in one of the deadliest attacks carried out by Islamic State militants since they overran large parts of Iraq.
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“The toll so far is 90 martyrs and 120 wounded, and we have between 17 and 20 missing”, Abbas Hadi Saleh, the top official in Khan Bani Saad, which is predominantly Shia but has a Sunni minority, told AFP.
Dozens of people were also wounded by the blast in Khan Bani Saad, approximately 30km northeast of the capital Baghdad.
The Iraqi air force and US-led coalition fighterw has intensified bombing on another Fallujah, another Anbar city, in a bid to soften ISIL defenses.
The Interior Ministry said that those arrested included people suspected of running militant websites used to recruit potential ISIS fighters.
In this photo from a militant website, “lion cubs” hold rifles and Islamic State flags as they exercise at a training camp in Tal Afar, near Mosul in northern Iraq.
In Iraq, Friday for Shiite Muslims was the eve of their Eid festival which is the way the mark the end of Ramadan their holy month.
Al-Temimi said three days of mourning has been declared in the province and called on the government to investigate the attack.
“The United States remains steadfast in its commitment to work with Prime Minister [Haider] Al-Abadi and our partners in Iraq and the worldwide community to bring an end to ISIL’s depravity”, Price said. IS claimed responsibility, posting grisly pictures online of bodies and wreckage-strewn streets and saying the attack was aimed at government-allied Shiite militia fighters.
IS militants are battling
government forces in the north and west of the country. Twelve YPG personnel were hospitalized.
Residents of the area can not believe this happened again.
The findings on the attacks in Syria were confirmed by an YPG statement issued Saturday.
“Although these chemical attacks appear to be test cases, we expect IS construction skills to advance as rapidly as they have for other (bombs)”, said Emmanuel Deisser, Sahan’s managing director.
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A Raqqa-based anti-Islamic State group and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the leaflets had drawings showing dead extremists and their flag turned upside down.
