A vehicle bomb targeted Shiite pilgrims in an area near Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 23 people and wounding at least 38, security and medical officials said.
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And the Islamic State group, which considers Shiites dissenters, has claimed responsibility for similar attacks on civilians in Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhoods.
Amaq news agency, which supports Islamic State, said a fighter in the Nahrawan district had driven a truck loaded with three tonnes of explosives into the gathering of Shi’ite pilgrims. Gen. Saad Mann, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry and Baghdad Operations Command.
The suicide bombing occurred as thousands of Shiite worshippers from across the country are expected to walk to Baghdad’s holy shrine of 8th-century Imam Moussa al-Kadhim.
File picture shows civilians gathering at the site of a vehicle bomb attack in Baghdad al-Jadida, Iraq April 25, 2016. “The only strategic weapon left for them are (suicide bombers)”, Mann said.
The bomb, which was in a parked auto, targeted a busy livestock market in Nahrawan town, police said.
The insurgent group controls large swaths of Iraq’s west and north, but, has suffered a series of territorial losses over the past year.
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Earlier, a report by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) estimated that 1,119 Iraqis were killed and 1,561 others wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in March across Iraq.
