Two suicide bombers attacked a police station west of Baghdad on Thursday, leaving two security personnel dead and eight others wounded, police and medics said. The attacks underscored how despite the territorial defeats suffered by Daesh over the past year, the Sunni extremist group is still capable of launching significant strikes across the country.
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In the first attack an SUV packed with explosives went off near a beauty salon in a bustling market at rush hour in Sadr City.
Iraqis look at the damage following a vehicle bomb attack in Sadr City in Baghdad on Wednesday, killed dozens.
IS issued an online statement claiming responsibility for the attack.
The ground near the explosion was littered with children’s toys, shoes, and wigs, Reuters reported, and at least two cars were destroyed in the bombing.
Iraq’s armed forces are engaged in preliminary operations to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, from Islamic State control and clear the Euphrates River Valley, where Iraq’s military expelled the militants from the city of Ramadi.
ISIL also claimed a twin suicide bombing in Sadr City that killed 70 people in February. ISIL said the assault in Sadr City was carried out by a suicide bomber, a claim Iraqi officials denied.
The three bombings were the deadliest attacks in the Iraqi capital this year.
Last weekend, protesters stormed the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, where the seat of Iraqi government is, briefly occupying the parliament building and demanding a vote on a revised list of cabinet appointments, which included nominees affiliated with the various political parties.
Both police officers and civilians were among the at least 17 people who died and 43 who were injured, officials said.
The sprawling slum is also a home base for the political movement now headed by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr – the fourth son of the area’s revered namesake, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1999.
The bombing of a soccer stadium south of Baghdad in March killed at least 30 people. Sadr City is named after al-Sadr’s father, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr.
Numerous victims were women including several brides who appeared to be getting ready for their weddings, sources said. “If they can’t protect us”, the owner of an electrical appliance store said, “then they have to let us do the job”.
Experts say that as the group’s territorial losses have mounted it has changed tactics, reverting to an earlier strategy of using large bombs to target security forces and Iraq’s Shiite majority, aiming to stoke sectarian strife and undermine faith in the Shiite-led government.
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As in Wednesday’s attacks, civilian residents of Baghdad have borne the brunt of the Islamic State’s brutality; in April, only 21 Shiite militiamen and 38 soldiers were killed compared with 413 civilians, according to analysis of press reports by Joel Wing, an Iraq analyst.
