WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD (AA): The death toll from Wednesday’s car-bombs attack in Baghdad’s predominantly-Shia Sadr City district and elsewhere in the capital — responsibility for which has since been claimed by the Daesh terrorist group — has risen to 90, local medical sources have said. Earlier car bomb attack near a beauty salon in market at rush hour in Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad, killed 63 people, and wounded over 100.
Ali Jaasim, an assistant doctor at Sadr City’s Imam Ali Hospital, also said the number of injured had risen to 100.
In a statement, the army’s Baghdad Operations Command said the attack had targeted a crowded marketplace.
Three other car bombings later in the day across Baghdad, killed around 27 people.
They took place at police checkpoints in the predominantly Shia Muslims areas of Kadhimayn and Hurriyah and in Jamiyah,
Daesh, speaking via a group-affiliated website, said the attack had been carried out by one of its suicide bombers, who it identified as Abu Sulaiyman al-Ansari.
In recent years, bombings and shooting attacks, which often target civilians, have become a common occurrence in war-torn Iraq, especially capital Baghdad.
Iraq has suffered a devastating security vacuum since 2014, when Daesh overran Mosul — the country’s second largest city — before going on to capture additional territory in Iraq and Syria.
Maj. Gen. Gary J. Volesky, a commander with the U.S.-led anti-Daesh coalition, said Iraqi security forces hadn’t requested any assistance from the U.S. to protect the capital.
Speaking to the reporters via videoconference from Baghdad, Volesky said the Iraqi government had not called troops fighting Daesh back to protect the city.
“This isn’t the first time something like this has happened,” he said, noting that Iraqi authorities had the situation under control.
A State Department spokeswoman condemned the attack.
“These cowardly attacks will only harden the resolve of Iraqis and the international community to utterly destroy this group and its warped ideology,” she said.
Author Kasım İleri,Haydar Hadi,Sibel Uğurlu
Additional reporting by The Muslim News
