World

Islamic State claims responsibility for Baghdad bomb attack that killed 125

July 3, 2016 5:20 pm

At least 125 people have been killed and about 150 injured in an explosion claimed by Islamic State in Baghdad.

A car bomb exploded on a busy street in the central district of Karrada late on Saturday (local time).

The mainly Shia area was busy with shoppers late at night because it is the holy month of Ramadan.,

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Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was met by angry crowds while visiting the scene of the blast on Sunday.

A second bomb also exploded at about midnight in a predominantly Shia area north of the capital, killing another five people.

The bombing in Karrada is the deadliest in Iraq this year.

It comes a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured the city of Falluja from Islamic State (IS) militants. Authorities say the city was used as a launch pad for attacks on Baghdad.

The jihadist group, which follows its own extreme version of Sunni Islam, said in an online statement that it carried out the attack.

Iraq’s highest Sunni religious body, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, called the bombing a “bloody crime, regardless of who carried it out or what their motivations were”.