Women react at the site after a suicide vehicle bomb attack at the shopping area of Karrada in Baghdad on July 4, 2016.
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The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, which holds territory in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Sunday’s suicide attack by the Islamic State militant group was the single deadliest bombing to hit Baghdad in more than a decade of war and insurgency.
A truck-refrigerator packed with explosives blew up in Karrada, killing 80 people and injuring at least 200. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to talk to reporters.
The discrepancies in the numbers could not immediately be reconciled.
In response to the battlefield setbacks, including the recent loss of the western city of Falluja, the militants have stepped up their attacks on civilians. Attacks targeting Shiite communities in the east of the country have been escalating at a time when Riyadh’s central control is weakening due to low oil prices. She said the process would take at least 16 days.
“It happens a lot here”, he added. Iraqi officials say that more dead bod.
Others gathered in Karada on Thursday also blamed the government for failing to secure the city. “Every day that people have to think about this tragedy, it just makes them more upset”.
The Iraqi government has been heavily criticised over the attack, with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met by angry crowds when he visited the blast site.
But when FRONTLINE filmmaker Martin Smith went to Baghdad in 2014, he noticed widespread use of the wands – plastic handles with antennas attached to them – at security checkpoints. It is unclear if any of those measures have yet been implemented.
Ghabban said the explosives-rigged auto came from Diyala province north of Baghdad, meaning it likely successfully navigated a security checkpoint on the way into the capital.
Health Minister Adila Hamoud said the bodies of 115 killed in the bombing had now been handed over to families, while the identities of 177 others have yet to be determined.
According to the BBC, most of those killed were in Karrada. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Investigators taking samples from the wreckage of the latest bombing suggested that napalm, or a variation of it, may have been used in the blast that ignited huge fires in three-level shopping complexes on either side of a road.
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The Iraqi government announced victory of retaking Fallujah, one of the last two strongholds of IS in Iraq, late last month, after nearly a month of military operations. “They have been laughing at us by making us use them”.
