Citing police officials, AP reports that a suicide vehicle bomb tore through a marketplace killing at least 35 people and wounding 72.
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Two bombs striking neighborhoods in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province killed at least 42 people Monday night, officials said, less than a month after the region was the scene of one of the deadliest attacks to hit the country in recent years.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s triple bombing, which bore all the hallmarks of the Islamic State group.
Another suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden vehicle past a checkpoint before blowing himself up in Kanaan district, killing at least 10 people and wounding the same number, a police captain said.
Following the July 17 bombing in Khan Bani Saad, the provincial authorities had tightened security across the province, especially in Baquba, about 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of Baghdad.
Hospital officials corroborated the casualty figures. All spoke anonymously as they are not authorised to speak with the media. Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters since have retaken those areas, but clashes between ISIL and security forces continue.
A separate blast to the east of Baquba killed a further seven people and wounded 25.
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Pro-government forces are struggling to uproot Daesh from large swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq which the group seized in a sweep across the Syrian border last summer. The Sunni terrorist group still controls around a third of Iraq and Syria under their self-declared “caliphate”.
