Iraq’s interior minister resigns after bombing

In the deadliest attack, a vehicle bomb hit Karada, a busy shopping district in the center of Baghdad, killing 78 people and wounding 160, according to police and hospital officials.

A member of the civil defence forces said it would take days to recover the bodies of the victims.

A boy mourns for his brother killed in Sunday’s auto bombing attacks in Karrada-Dakhil district in southern Baghdad, Iraq, on July 5, 2016.

Protests have been fairly muted so far, with grief for the dead still the overwhelming emotion for Iraqis.

Officials, apparently seeking to shore up their image after the attack claimed by the Islamic State group, had already announced new security measures, the execution of five convicts and the arrest of 40 jihadists.

On June 28, three suicide bombers armed with assault rifles attacked Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, killing at least 44 people and wounding scores more.

Bruno Geddo, of the United Nations refugee agency, said it was “particularly cruel to target a camp holding vulnerable displaced families, who had already fled their homes to escape conflict and violence”.

While no group has claimed responsibility for the Saudi attacks, the IS group has been behind more than two dozen terror attacks in the kingdom in the last two years.

Iraq’s interior minister says he submitted his resignation in the wake of Sunday’s devastating suicide bombing in central Baghdad, which killed at least 175 people. This is only adding to the sense that Prime Minister Abadi is failing, not just to provide reform, but in the war as well.

Al-Ghabban said security in Baghdad – and in other cities throughout the country – should be managed by the Interior Ministry’s police apparatus rather than the army.

The withdrawal of wands follows years of insistence by the Interior Ministry officials that they were effective in sensing odours from explosive components.

The death toll from a suicide bombing on a busy Baghdad shopping street rose to more than 200 Monday as victims succumbed to their injuries and rescuers pulled out bodies from the charred shops and malls, making it the Islamic State’s deadliest-ever bomb attack on civilians.

The search continued for bodies at the site of the attack, which ripped through the Karrada district early on Sunday as it teemed with shoppers ahead of this week’s holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Terrorist group ISIS remains capable of savage attacks causing major loss of life despite having lost hold of considerable ground on the battlefield, most recently being the city of Fallujah, an hour’s drive west of the capital.