At Least 70 Killed in Blast at Busy Baghdad Shopping District Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the car bombing, which also injured at least 150 people By Ghassan Adnan in Baghdad and Karen Leigh in Dubai
http://www.wsj.com/articles/baghdad-bombings-target-busy-shopping-districts-1467531437
Islamic State claimed responsibility for a massive car bomb that exploded overnight in the heart of one of Baghdad’s busiest commercial areas, killing 72 people and wounding at least 150 others, Iraq’s interior ministry said.
The explosion in the upscale central neighborhood of Karrada went off around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, setting nearby buildings ablaze as young people and families packed the streets, reveling after sundown and the breaking of the Ramadan fast. It was the terror group’s first major attack on the heavily patrolled area since May 2015.
Islamic State, a Sunni militant group, said in a statement distributed online that it had targeted a gathering of Shiites. It and other Sunni extremists reject Shiism, calling it polytheism.
Civil defense teams worked through the night pulling bodies from the debris. Families of those missing gathered in the street, looking for their relatives and shouting and cursing at security forces they said had failed to keep the area safe.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi toured the site hours after the explosion, promising to punish those responsible, according to a statement from his office. Angry crowds there jeered him, calling him a thief.
“Leave, leave, don’t let him stay here,” they said.
Mr. Abadi has faced months of political uncertainty partly caused by frequent attacks on Baghdad and other cities that have exposed gaps in Iraq’s security infrastructure. A protest movement this year questioned his leadership and called for immediate government reform.
Minutes after the Karrada bombing, an improvised explosive device detonated in the crowded east Baghdad neighborhood Al Shaab, killing four people and wounding 16 others, the interior ministry said. It targeted young Iraqis who were out shopping for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, which begins this week.
No group has claimed responsibility for the second attack.
Islamic State in May claimed a series of bombings that left 88 people dead across Baghdad, one of the deadliest days of insurgent violence in the country’s history and a stark reminder that the government had failed to uproot the extremist group despite dealing it a number of recent setbacks on the battlefield.
The Iraqi army reclaimed full control of Fallujah from Islamic State on June 26. The Anbar province city some 40 miles west from Baghdad had served as a command center for the terror group, and was one of its last major strongholds in Iraq following losses in Ramadi and the northern city of Sinjar. CONTINUE AT SITE
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