BAGHDAD: Suicide bombings claimed by the IS group killed at least 27 people in Baghdad, officials said on Tuesday, as Iraqi forces fight to retake the last IS-held areas in Mosul.
In the deadliest of the two attacks, a bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle at a popular ice cream shop at around midnight, killing at least 16 people and wounding 75.
The bomber struck just days after the start of Ramadhan, during which Iraqis often stay out late shopping or socialising after breaking
their daily fast.
IS issued statements claiming the ice cream shop blast and a later bombing, saying both were car bombings targeting members of Iraq’s majority.
Images and footage posted on social media showed the devastating impact of the first blast, which ripped through the crowded area around Al Faqma ice cream shop in the Karrada district of central Baghdad, scattering rubble across the street. One photo showed cups of ice cream scattered on the blood-stained ground.
Brett McGurk, the US envoy to the international coalition fighting IS, condemned the attack and expressed solidarity with Iraq.
IS “terrorists tonight in Baghdad target children and families enjoying time together at an ice cream shop. We stand with Iraq against this evil,” McGurk said on Twitter.
In the second attack, a bomber blew up a bomb-rigged vehicle near the country’s main pension office, which is close to one of the principal bridges over the River Tigris, the Baghdad Operations Command said in a statement. The attack killed at least 11 people and wounding at least 40, officials said.
The attacks in Baghdad come as Iraqi forces fight to retake the last IS-held areas of Mosul, a city that was the group’s most emblematic stronghold.
Iraqi forces are more than seven months into a massive operation to retake the city from IS, and have already recaptured its whole east side and much of the west.
On Tuesday, an Iraqi army officer said that security forces were proceeding slowly in Al Shifaa in a bid to protect infrastructure. “The problem is that it is a neighbourhood with four or five hospitals,” Brigadier General Shakir Kadhim Mohsen said in Mosul. — AFP
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