Suicide bombings killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 50 in Shi’ite districts of Iraq’s capital Baghdad, police and medical sources say.
At least eight people were killed and at least 29 wounded Tuesday in the eastern new Baghdad Jadida commercial area when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest in a commercial street.
Another suicide attack hit a commercial street of Bayaa in western Baghdad, killing at least nine and wounding 22 people, the sources said.
On a militant website commonly used by the extremists, a source self-identified as Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying it targeted Shiite militia members.
The jihadist Sunni Muslim group has carried out frequent bomb attacks on Iraqi Shi’ite Muslims, whom it considers to be heretics, and in government-held areas as it loses territory to U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias.
The group continues to control vast areas in northern and western Iraq, including the city of Mosul, captured in 2014.
Tuesday’s violence came two days after another suicide bombing claimed by IS killed six people in western Baghdad. On Monday, bomb and gun attacks claimed by the jihadist group killed 12 people in the area of Tikrit, north of the capital.
IS claimed a truck bombing in July that killed at least 324 people in the Karrada shopping area of Baghdad, the deadliest single attack in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Source: VOA
