At least 83 people have been killed and 176 wounded in two separate bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Sunday morning, Iraqi officials said, ABC News announced.
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And 81 of the bodies are so charred DNA testing will need to be conducted in order to identify them, al-Rubaye said.
After the single deadliest attack in Iraq this year, Abadi also ordered a renewed corruption investigation into the sale of the devices from 2007-10, which cost Iraq more than £53 million (€63 million), as it bought the wands at vastly inflated fees.
Iraqi officials say the death toll from Sunday’s devastating truck bombing at a bustling Baghdad commercial street has climbed to 142.
But security forces were still using the devices Monday evening as a string of smaller bombings in the capital killed 16 people and wounded dozens more.
Announcing the start of three days of national mourning over the attack, Abadi said via an official statement Sunday: “With deep sorrow, pain and sympathy, we mourn the martyrs of the tragedy of the heinous, dastardly and cowardly bombing at Karrada in Baghdad at dawn today”.
The PMOI sided with former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein during Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s but fell out of favour with Baghdad after he was toppled by a United States-led invasion in 2003.
Meanwhile, Islamic State has claimed responsibility for two bombings in Baghdad that killed almost 120 people and wounded 200, majority in a busy shopping area while residents celebrated the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for some of these attacks, while others were inspired by the terror group, authorities say.
The auto bomb that exploded in a crowded shopping area in Baghdad early on Sunday was from Diyala province, north of the capital, and was thought to have passed through a security checkpoint on its way in, Ghabban said.
The ministry also offered its condolences to families of victims of Sunday’s carnage in Baghdad.
The attack came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group’s control.
“The terrorist groups carried out such desperate deadly attacks as a result of being crushed in the battlefield”, the statement said, referring to the government’s recent victory of retaking Fallujah city from IS in the country’s western province of Anbar.
A video posted on social media showed people throwing pavement stones at the SUV convoy of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Karrada, a largely Shi’ite are with a small Christian community, venting their anger at the inability of the security forces to protect the area.
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“(Iraq’s government has) to reassess what they’re doing”, he said.
