Baghdad market blasts kill dozens

Baghdad market blasts kill dozens

January 01, 2017
Iraqis look at the aftermath following a double bomb attack in a busy market area in Baghdad’s central Al-Sinek neighborhood, Saturday. — AFP
Iraqis look at the aftermath following a double bomb attack in a busy market area in Baghdad’s central Al-Sinek neighborhood, Saturday. — AFP




BAGHDAD — Two suicide bombers ripped through a busy market area in central Baghdad Saturday, shattering a relative lull in attacks in the capital and marring preparations for New Year celebrations.

The bombers attacked the Al-Sinek area, killing at least 27 people and wounding 53, a police colonel said. An officer in the Interior Ministry and a hospital official confirmed the toll.

“Many of the victims were people from the spare parts shops in the area, they were gathered near a cart selling breakfast when the explosions went off,” said Ibrahim Mohammed Ali, who owns a nearby shop.

Torn clothes and mangled iron were strewn across the ground in pools of blood at the site of the wreckage near Rasheed Street, one of the main thoroughfares in Baghdad, an AFP photographer said.

“Twin terrorist attacks were carried out by suicide bombers in Al-Sinek neighborhood,” an official from Baghdad operations command told AFP.

The area is packed with shops, workshops and wholesale markets and usually teeming with delivery trucks and laborers unloading vans or wheeling carts around. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for what was the deadliest attack to hit the capital since mid-October but Daesh (the so-called IS) group has claimed nearly all such bombings.

Baghdad has been on high alert since the start on Oct. 17 of an offensive, Iraq’s largest military operation in years, to retake the northern militant stronghold of Mosul.

Daesh has tried to hit back with major diversionary attacks across the country but has had little success in Baghdad. Saturday’s twin bombings were the deadliest in the capital since the start of the Mosul offensive.

Huge crowds were expected to gather Saturday evening in Baghdad’s streets to celebrate the New Year for only the second time since the lifting in 2015 of a years-old curfew. — AFP


January 01, 2017
HIGHLIGHTS