The attacks come at a time of a political freeze that has paralyzed the work of the Iraqi government and parliament, adding to the nation’s complex set of military, security, humanitarian, economic, and human rights issues. The Baghdad market bombing on Wednesday was promptly claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group. Iraq’s US -backed military has put the radical fighters on the defensive.
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Kamal Alsaedi, a local Iraqi American activist, said Iraqi expatriates feel agony and despair because of the bloodshed in Baghdad. This neighborhood was also populated largely with Sunni Muslims, but the target was a checkpoint, not a market. Sadr has led calls for political reform, including firing Iraq’s ministers and replacing them with technocrats.
Last month, thousands of Sadr supporters overran the capital’s heavily fortified Green Zone, beating up lawmakers and threatening to bring down the government unless Prime Minister Haider Abadi could deliver a so-called technocratic Cabinet – one not based on a quota system drawing from Iraq’s squabbling parties and sects.
In February, the group carried out devastating back-to-back market bombings in Sadr City, the stronghold of followers of an influential Shiite cleric. “That’s why you see all these bullet holes around us”, he said.
“Now people are more angry and blame the government for failing to protect them”.
Iraqi American humanitarian Nidhal Garmo, who returned from an aid mission to Iraq in March, said she could not stop crying since watching the graphic images of the attacks. “Everyone was in a state of confusion”. However, the other two detonated their vests, causing multiple casualties. The BBC’s David Bamford reports it’s frequently attacked by the Islamic State – a Sunni militant group.
Both police officers and civilians were among the at least 17 people who died and 43 who were injured, officials said. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to release information. The security official said five policemen were killed and another 12 people wounded. “There are lots of martyrs, majority women and children”.
The blast happened in a crowded outdoor market, said police.
Government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi went on state television hours after the Sadr City bombing and said that IS now only controls 14 per cent of Iraq, down from 40 per cent.
Security forces are now engaged in large-scale military operations in the provinces of Anbar and Nineveh, where IS’s two major remaining hubs in Iraq are located. One bomb targeted a police station in the northwestern Kadhimiyah neighborhood, while another struck in the northern neighborhood of Jamiya. The AP, citing police, put the toll at 30. “The more the government is distracted with political upheaval, the more the Islamic State can capitalize on that lack of attention”.
The attacks – vehicle bombings at an outdoor market and at a police checkpoint, and a checkpoint blast set off by someone on foot – have been claimed by the Islamic State, NPR’s Alison Meuse reports.
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“These cowardly attacks will only harden the resolve of Iraqis and the worldwide community to utterly destroy this group and its warped ideology”, spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said.
