“The attack was one of Iraq’s worst, and the head of civil defense in the Karrada area of Baghdad said on state TV that he had never seen a bomb like this – the flames spread further and were more powerful than the vehicle bombs that hit Baghdad several times a month”. At least 185 people were wounded.
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Small-scale bombings occur on a near-daily basis in Baghdad, and in May a string of large-scale bombings, many of them claimed by IS, killed more than 200 people in a single week.
“We refuse categorically all political or worldwide interventions to stop the death sentence under the cover of human rights; Iraqi blood is above all slogans”, it said, linking the timing of the executions to the Karrada bombing.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi inspected the scene of the attack and vowed revenge, state broadcaster al-Iraqiya reported. The blast set buildings ablaze, and crowds of people watched from the rubble-filled street as emergency personnel carried out victims and worked on the site. He also ordered the reopening of an investigation on the procurement of the British-made electronic wands, called ADE 651s.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information to the media.
In 2010, British authorities arrested the director of the British company ATSC Ltd. on fraud charges, prompting Iraqis to open their own investigation into alleged corruption. In a statement circulated online by Islamic State supporters, which dpa could not verify, it claimed that a suicide bomber targeted Shiites. Iraqi authorities made some arrests, but the investigation went nowhere and the device remained in use. He demanded the upgrades of the capital’s security belt, increased aerial scanning, a step-up in intelligence efforts and the division of responsibility among various security units.
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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. Bombings in the capital have decreased since the IS group overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently more concerned with operations elsewhere.- France24/AFP.
