Statements released by the Spanish government and Real Madrid said the attack targeted a local fan club.
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It was not immediately clear if the attack was tied to the Real Madrid supporters’ soccer fandom.
IS did not mention soccer fans in its statement, and it’s unlikely that they were the target of the attack. They just carry out attacks like this. “This is a bad tragedy”, Ziad Subhan told the Diario AS newspaper. Iraqi authorities are facing scrutiny over security breaches that allowed suicide attackers to set off three bombs on Wednesday in Baghdad, killing 80 people. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is struggling to firm up a government capable of battling ISIS and, at the same time, address the country’s long-standing economic and political wounds from years of war.
“We met at midnight, but if those terrorists arrived one hour before that they would kill more young men, because many fans left the cafe”, Tha’er said. “They blew themselves up when the security forces and some residents chased them and got close”, he said.
A Reuters witness saw the scorched body of a suspected assailant hanging upside down from a post outside the cafe yesterday morning.
The intelligence official said fighters from the powerful Iranian-backed Badr Organisation raided a nearby house and detained 13 members of a Sunni family.
Real Madrid have offered their condolences to victims of an ISIS attack, at a meeting of one of the club’s supporters’ groups in Iraq.
The incident comes a day after five Iraqis lost their lives in suicide bombings claimed by Daesh in Abu Ghraib city, west of Baghdad.
A group of gunmen stormed a cafe in a town north of the Iraqi capital on May 13, leaving at least 13 people dead and 15 wounded.
With over 100 people killed over two days, hundreds of people have taken to the streets in Baghdad, protesting against political corruption and denouncing the government for failing to protect them.
ISIS later claimed credit for the attacks through online media agencies.
The town was recaptured by security forces and Shia militiamen a month later, and is now about 40km from the nearest frontline with IS.
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A report by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq estimated that 741 Iraqis were killed and 1,374 others wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflicts in April across Iraq.
