59 killed, 100 injured in Baghdad twin bomb attacks

Baghdad: Militants attacked an outdoor market yesterday in eastern Baghdad, killing at least 59 people and wounding nearly 100, officials said.

A bomb ripped through the crowded Mredi market in the Shiite district of Sadr City, a police officer said. Minutes later, a suicide bomber blew himself up amid the crowd that had gathered at the site of the first bombing, he added.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sad Main said the bombings killed 38 people and wounded another 62.

Multiple hospital officials later increased the casualty toll to 59 dead and 95 wounded. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

The attack was the deadliest in a wave of recent explosions that have targeted commercial areas in and outside

In the town of Mahmoudiya, about 30 kilometers south of Baghdad, three shoppers were killed and 10 wounded in a bomb explosion, another police officer said. Four others were killed in a separate bomb attack in Baghdad’s southern Dora neighborhood, he added.

The attacks came hours after security forces repelled an attack by IS militants on the capital’s western suburb of Abu Ghraib, officials said.

Three suicide car bombers struck a security force barracks as gunmen opened fire, according to two police officers. At least 12 members of government and paramilitary security forces were killed and 35 wounded, they added. The clashes left a silo on fire, they said.