Truck bomb targeting Shiites kills 67 at Baghdad market

Thursday’s blast at the Jameela market in the over-crowded Sadr City neighborhood also wounded 125 people.

Radhi al-Saidi, a shopkeeper who said two of his workers were killed, said the bomb-laden truck was known at the market and brought tomatoes to sell every week.

Four hospital officials confirmed the casualty figures. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State jihadist group frequently targets Shiites, whom it considers to be heretics. The truck bomb ripped through a crowded marketplace in Sadr City, killing at least 80 people and wounding at least 200 others in an impoverished Shi’ite district.

The crowds waved Iraqi flags and banners showing their support for the first of several reform measures from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

The Popular Mobilization Units – predominantly Shiite militias allied with the government – have been deployed alongside Iraqi forces to try to push back against ISIS, which consists of Sunni Muslim extremists. The bombing is one of the deadliest attacks on Baghdad since ISIS established a self-clamed Caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq.

The market in the Shia neighbourhood is one of the biggest in Baghdad selling wholesale food items.

UN acting mission chief in Iraq Gyorgy Busztin called the attack “heinous and cowardly”, while the Iraqi parliament’s security committee denounced the bombing, saying it showed “the ugliness and brutality” of the attackers.

Many people were enraged by the attack, Shiite lawmaker Hakim al-Zamili, demanded a review of security, and improvement of Iraq’s intelligence service.

The bombing is an indication that sectarian tensions in Baghdad, largely muted since the uprising of the Islamic State group (or ISIS), is once again on the rise and that the prime minister’s new reforms could cause more violence.

While near-daily attacks are common in the capital, death tolls have rarely reached this level for a single attack in Baghdad since the height of the country’s brutal sectarian bloodshed in 2006 and 2007. Jets taking off from Turkey have not yet joined the operation.

Baghdad’s forces have since regained ground from the jihadists with backing from a US-led coalition and Iran, but much of the country’s west remains outside government control.