At least 35 people were killed and scores of others injured by a suicide bomber in a crowded market in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad on the eve of the Eid al-Adha festival on Monday, security and hospital sources said. According to a police source, more than 60 people were wounded.
The Islamic State’s news agency Nasheer claimed responsibility for the attack on Telegram. One of its militants blew up his explosive vest in the crowd, it said. As some of the wounded were in critical condition, the death toll could rise, according to hospital sources.
Premier Mustafa al-Kadhimi met urgently with top security commanders to discuss the attack, his office said in a statement. President Barham Salih posted a tweet saying: ‘With an awful crime they target civilians in Sadr City on the eve of Eid… We will not rest until terrorism is destroyed’.
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Earlier this year, the Sunni Muslim militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on a market in Sadr City, Baghdad’s main Shi’ite neighborhood, that killed four people and injured 20. The Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in central Baghdad last January that killed more than 30 people in the crowded Tayaran Square market – Iraq’s first major suicide bombing in three years.
In the past, large bomb attacks were almost daily in the Iraqi capital, but have declined since an Islamic State invasion of northern and western Iraq was defeated in 2017.
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