– Reports have it that Iraqis late
on Saturday, July 2 night in central Baghdad to eat, shop and just be together
to celebrate one of the last evenings of the month of Ramadan, a huge bomb
exploded and killed at least 123 people – This is the third mass killing of
civilians in three different countries carried out by the Islamic State in
recent days Share on Facebook Share on Twitter suicide bombing Scene of suicide
bombing NewYork Times reports that the suicide bombing happened briefly after
12 am in the middle-class neighbourhood of Karrada, which is a busy area of
cafes, shops and hotels, and was the deadliest single attack in Baghdad in 2016
– Airforce boss anthe first major assault in
the capital since Iraqi Forces retook Falluja from ISIS late last month.
Falluja had been in the hands of the Islamic State for two-and-a-half years,
longer than any other in Iraq or Syria, and many Iraqis had feared that after
its liberation the Islamic State would strike back with more terror attacks in
Baghdad. The Sunni extremists of the Islamic State almost immediately claimed
responsibility for the bombing, saying it had killed a gathering of Shiite
Muslims. But Karrada is a mixed area where Iraqis of all identities gather to
do ordinary things: mainly to shop and eat.
Rescue workers and residents trying
to evacuate dead bodies from the blast scene The bombing came just after the
Islamic State, also known as ISIL, took responsibility for an attack on a
restaurant in Bangladesh that left 20 people dead, some of them hacked apart by
swords and knives. And it followed by a few days the coordinated suicide attack
on Istanbul’s main airport that killed more than 40 people, for which Turkish
authorities blamed the Islamic State, although the terrorist group itself did
not claim responsibility. By daybreak on Sunday in Baghdad, fires were still
burning at the bombing site, while hospitals tended to the wounded, and
mourners prepared for funerals. Some bodies were believed to be still buried in
the rubble of a shopping mall. Along with the deaths, at least 140 people were
injured, officials said Sunday afternoon. Baghdad Operations Command, which is
in charge of security in the capital, was quick to announce that it had
arrested a terrorist “cell” in the city that was linked to the bombing. Many of
the victims were children — the explosion struck near a three-story complex of
cafes and shops where families were celebrating a successful end of the school
year, residents said — and on Sunday dozens of people were still unaccounted
for. One man named Omar Adil said that his two brothers, Ghaith and Mustafa,
were missing. Five people from a single family in Sadr City, a large, poor
Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, were also missing.
The scenes were another brutal
illustration of the paradox Iraq faces as its security forces, backed by
American airstrikes, make gains against the Islamic State: As more territory is
won back, the group is reverting to its roots as a guerrilla insurgency,
turning Baghdad once again into an urban killing field. The bombing was an
abrupt ending to the brief victory lap that Iraq’s beleaguered prime minister,
Haider al-Abadi, was enjoying following the recapture of Falluja. When he
visited the bombing site on Sunday morning, people threw rocks and shoes — a
particular insult in the Arab world — at his convoy and yelled “thief,” an
epithet directed as much at Iraq’s dysfunctional and corrupt political class as
it was to Mr. Abadi personally. Ali Ahmed, 25, who owns a shop close to where
the attack happened, said he had carried the bodies of children out of the
rubble. He voiced anger at the security forces for failing to stop the bomber,
and questioned why the street, which had been closed off earlier in the
evening, was reopened around midnight. “Thank God I managed to hit Abadi with
stones to take revenge for the kids,” he said. The anger swelling on Sunday
perhaps presaged a resumption of street unrest in Baghdad that had calmed amid
Ramadan and the military operations in Falluja. Beginning last summer a street
protest movement gathered steam, demanding that Mr. Abadi root out corruption,
end the system of handing out government posts based on sect and improve
services. Mr. Abadi made several proposals but has been unable to make
meaningful changes in the face of opposition from other political blocs worried
about losing their influence. The protest movement ebbed and flowed over the months,
and at various times different factions sought to capitalize on the growing
anger of Iraq’s citizens. Earlier this year the powerful Shiite cleric Moktada
al-Sadr, who commands a following among millions of the country’s Shiite
underclass, tried to seize the movement, and twice his followers stormed the
fortified Green Zone, the citadel of government that houses the Parliament
building, Mr. Abadi’s office and embassies. The war on the terrorist group has
continued for a long time .
Source: New York Times
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