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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Mr Abadi also ordered changes aimed at addressing long-standing flaws in Baghdad security measures, including scrapping fake bomb detectors that were in widespread use at checkpoints years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain. He said he submitted a reform plan when he took office in 2015, but it was shelved.
Sunday’s suicide attack by the Islamic State group was the single deadliest bombing to hit Baghdad in more than a decade of war and insurgency.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the United States was “working closely” with Iraqi counterparts, but said he foresaw no changes to current levels of USA involvement. Police and health officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, warned that the death toll could grow. In claiming the attack, ISIS offered a sectarian motive, saying it targeted Shiite Muslims.
The Karrada-Dakhil bombing is the bloodiest attack this year in the country, where the army is fighting Islamic State militants.
People grieve at the scene of a massive auto bomb attack in Karada, a busy shopping district where people were shopping for the upcoming Eid al-Fitr holiday, in the center of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, July 4, 2016.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a string of assaults during the holy month for Muslims, a period of fasting and prayer, and also a time when jihadists launch operations against those they regard as their enemies.
“They are trying to create enough chaos in Iraq itself so that the Iraqi forces will find it very hard to actually take advantage of the forward momentum they have achieved due to their victory in Falluja and that is a very serious issue that the al-Abadi administration is going to have to address”.
In its new guise, some analysts said, Islamic State is coming to more closely resemble al Qaeda, which has primarily focused on large-scale attacks rather than try to hold territory.
Earlier Sunday, after the bombing, the Interior Ministry’s website was hacked and a picture was posted of a bloodied baby and one of the supposed bomb detectors.
The US said in April it would send more troops to Iraq and put them nearer the front lines to advise Iraqi forces in their campaign against extremist militias.
“We’ve always made clear that the military campaign is not enough to defeat Daesh (Islamic State) or to remove the threat that it poses”, State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.
During a rare spate of attacks in Jordan recently, Western officials in the capital Amman intercepted messages from Islamic State leaders urging supporters to spread terror at home rather than join militants across the border in Syria. With close to 40 children too having perished in the blast, it will be a joyless Eid for many in Iraq this week. Karrada and Shaab are predominately Shiite. No group has claimed responsibility for that attack, but Turkish authorities say they suspect the IS group is to blame.
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As Iraq marked three days of national mourning, security and medical officials told AFP the number of dead from the attack had risen to at least 213.
