Hadithi went on state television hours after Wednesday’s first attack, a huge auto bomb blast in a busy market area of the Sadr City neighborhood that killed at least 64 people.
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Wednesday’s auto bombs in Baghdad targeted a police station, the Jamiya neighborhood and an outdoor market in Sadr City.
A medical official confirmed casualty figures.
The bombings also come at a time of political deadlock that has paralyzed the work of the Iraqi government and parliament, adding to the country’s complex set of military, security, humanitarian, economic and human rights challenges.
A pickup truck packed with explosives in Sadr City went off near a beauty salon in a bustling market. One targeted a police station in Baghdad’s northwest Kadhimiyah neighborhood, killing 18 people, including five policemen.
Maj. Gen. Gary J. Volesky, a commander in the USA -led campaign against Islamic State, said Iraq’s security forces hadn’t requested assistance to safeguard the capital or called back troops fighting Islamic State after the bombings.
On April 30, hundreds of al-Sadr’s supporters stormed the heavily fortified Green Zone in the heart of Baghdad and broke into the parliament building.
Hours after the market attack, a suicide vehicle bomb exploded outside a police checkpoint in Kadhimiya, a mostly Shia district that is the location of an important shrine, officials said.
But some angry residents said they believed government officials allowed the attack in response to antigovernment protests spearheaded by anti-U.S. leader Muqtada Sadr, the Shiite Muslim cleric who heads the Mahdi Army militia.
“What is clear from this incident is that a lot of innocent people have been killed, and it certainly is consistent with ISIL’s strategy of wreaking havoc and sowing chaos and violence and sectarian tension”, he said, using an acronym for the extremist group.
In recent years, bombings and shooting attacks, which often target civilians, have become a common occurrence in war-torn Iraq, especially capital Baghdad.
“Once again ISIS has carried out a devastating attack created to inflict maximum death and suffering on ordinary Iraqis”, said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. On February 28, ISIS claimed a pair of suicide bombings in Baghdad’s Sadr City that killed at least 70. The Islamic State, a Sunni group, considers Shiite Muslims to be apostates. In statements circulated by supporters online, ISIS claimed today’s auto bomb was targeting a group of Shiite militia fighters who were gathered in the market.
Three bombings across the Iraqi capital Wednesday killed at least 93 people, according to the Associated Press.
Also, Iraq said on Wednesday its USA -backed military campaign against the IS had retaken around two-thirds of the territory seized by the militants in their lightning sweep across the country’s north and west in 2014.
He offered no timetable for an Iraqi attack on Mosul, which Islamic State fighters have held for two years.
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A total of 1,374 Iraqis were wounded that month, it said.
