Numbers rose as bodies were recovered from the rubble in the Karrada area of Baghdad, where a refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up on Saturday night when people were out celebrating the holy month of Ramadan.
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Despite territorial gains by Iraq’s ground forces against ISIS and loosing by the latter one of 45 percent of the territory it once held in Iraq, the terrorist group is still able to launch attacks.
Abadi announced a three days of national mourning for the victims of the attack.
The horrifying bombing in Baghdad has not sparked changes to the US-led coalition’s strategy against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, a Pentagon official said Tuesday.
Mourners react during a funeral of a victim who was killed in a suicide auto bomb in the Karrada shopping area in Baghdad, during the funeral in Najaf, south of Baghdad, Iraq, July 3, 2016. His resignation will be official only if Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi approves it. Abadi’s office had no immediate comment.
Mr Biden is said to have reaffirmed “the unwavering commitment of the United States to help Iraq defeat ISIL so that all Iraqis may live in peace and stability”.
Iraq’s al-Forat news agency quoted a source close to the prime minister as saying that Abadi had accepted Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban’s resignation.
With anger rising that government protection was not strong enough to deter the single deadliest bombing in over a decade of war and insurgency, Baghdad announced the execution of five convicted “terrorists” on July 4 and said it had arrested 40 other militants.
The disappearances, along with the Baghdad bombing “increase the likelihood of a renewed cycle of full-throttle sectarian violence”, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in a statement on Tuesday.
Health Minister Adila Hamoud told the Agence France-Presse that the bombing killed 250 people and wounded 200.
“(Iraq’s government has) to reassess what they’re doing”, he said.
He also ordered security personnel manning checkpoints not to use their mobile phones while on duty – a frequent occurrence that reduces the effectiveness of the many checkpoints scattered around Baghdad.
The bloody bombings have been claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group which said that one of its suicide bombers detonated his vehicle bomb at a crowd of Shiite people in the predominantly Shiite district of Karrada-Dakhil, according to a statement posted online, which could not be independently verified.
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Iraqi forces, supported by U.S. -led coalition airstrikes, have secured a string of victories against IS over the past year and a half, retaking the cities of Tikrit, Ramadi and Fallujah, which was declared fully liberated from the extremist group just over a week ago. The devices were reportedly still in use in Baghdad the following morning.
