Baghdad: The Daesh group claimed responsibility for a bombing on Saturday east of Baghdad, according to a statement posted on a Daesh-affiliated website. The attack killed at least 21 people and wounded at least 42 others, according to Iraqi police and hospital officials. The Daesh statement described the attack as a three-tonne truck bombing.
The attack targeted Shiite civilians shopping in an open-air market selling fruit, vegetables and meat in Nahrawan, according to Iraq’s Interior Ministry. The Daesh statement and initial reports from local officials at the scene claimed the bombing targeted Shiite pilgrims walking to Baghdad’s holy Kadhimiyah shrine.
“It was not a road for people walking toward Kadhimiyah,” said Brig. Gen. Saad Mann, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry and Baghdad Operations Command.
The attack’s casualty figures were confirmed by police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the press.
Thousands of Shiite pilgrims from across Iraq are expected to travel on foot to the shrine of 8th-century Imam Mousa Al Kadhim over the coming days to commemorate the anniversary of his death. Security in the capital has been tightened in anticipation of the crowds” additional checkpoints have been set up and roads have been closed.
The Daesh group regularly carries out attacks targeting Iraq’s Shiite majority, including attacks on Shiite pilgrims and civilians in Baghdad’s Shiite neighbourhoods.
Mann said the attack in Baghdad was carried out by Daesh in response to recent territorial losses in Iraq. “The only strategic weapon left for them are (suicide bombers),” Mann said. While Daesh still controls large swathes of Iraq’s west and north, the group has suffered a series of territorial losses over the past year. Most recently Daesh fighters were pushed out of the western town of Hit.
In the face of those losses, analysts and Iraqi security officials say the extremist group is increasingly turning to insurgent-style attacks in Baghdad and other areas far from the frontline fighting.
More than 40 civilians have been killed in high-profile bombings in Baghdad over the past month. On March 25 a Daesh-claimed suicide bombing attack on a stadium killed 29 and wounded 60.
Saturday’s attack also comes amid a political crisis in Iraq as the country’s Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi is under increasing public pressure after repeated failed attempts at political reform to combat corruption and waste.
