An explosives-laden vehicle bomb ripped through a commercial area in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens, Iraqi officials said.
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The first blast hit a busy outdoor market during Wednesday morning’s rush hour in the northern district Sadr City, a predominantly Shiite area.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, claimed responsibility for all three attacks in Baghdad on Wednesday in which 93 people killed and more than 165 wounded.
Suicide attacks on Wednesday killed at least 80 people and wounded more than 110 others, including civilians and security forces.
A wave of Islamic State bombings in Baghdad has killed almost 100 people in two days, exposing lingering gaps in the capital’s defenses, which are manned by an array of security agencies and militias that don’t always cooperate.
In an online statement, IS said it had targeted a gathering of Shiite militia.
A suicide bomber stormed a security checkpoint leading into Kadhimiya, a north-western area housing one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, killing 17.
The Sunni fighters blew up several cars as Iraqi government forces drew closer to ISIL-held territories.
“The market was so crowded”, said Haider Salah, 28, a cabdriver who witnessed the attack.
“Politicians threatened us publicly and we thought there would be a campaign of arrests, but it seems they carried out this explosion instead”, she said.
As Islamic State has been pushed out of key towns and cities it seized in 2014, it has resorted increasingly to guerrilla-style attacks in civilian areas under the nominal Iraqi government control.
Security forces are now preparing for an operation to isolate and eventually recapture the northern city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest, which fell to the jihadists in 2014.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, linked the recent IS attacks to the political turmoil, saying the country faces a “serious challenge” and that the public needs to rise above “grudges and revenge”.
In February, Sadr City was the scene of a suicide bomb attack on a market in which over 70 people lost their lives.
The Islamic State group later claimed responsibility for all three bombings. The extremist group recently lost Iraqi territory it had conquered in 2014.
The bomb at the market went off near a beauty salon in the bustling market and numerous victims were women including several brides who appeared to be getting ready for their weddings, sources told Reuters.
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The Iraqi army is battling the IS in the country’s western and northern regions, vowing to retake Mosul, the second largest city, by the end of this year.
