At least 35 people have been killed in a suicide car bomb attack in a busy square in the capital, Baghdad today. Iraqi police sources said sixty-one other people were injured by the blast in the predominantly Shia Muslim eastern district of Sadr City.
The Sunni jihadist group Islamic State said it had carried out the attack, which targeted a gathering of Shia. Another car bomb later exploded in the car park of the nearby Al-Kindi hospital, killing three people.
A number of the victims of today’s attack are believed to have been daily labourers waiting for work at the 55th intersection in Sadr City. IS also claimed an attack in central Baghdad that killed at least 28 people on Saturdahe attacks occurred as French President Francois Hollande visited the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service’s academy near Baghdad.