BAGHDAD: At least 42 people were killed yesterday as a motorcycle rigged with explosives detonated in Baghdad’s Sadr City and militants targeted mostly Shia neighbourhoods around the country.
The motorcycle was parked in a second-hand market in the Shia Muslim neighbourhood that sells used bikes and was filled with people, mostly young men, when it exploded late in the afternoon, killing 31 and wounding 51, Iraqi medical and police sources said.
It was not clear who was behind the bombing but violence against Shias is often blamed on the Sunni Muslim Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an Al Qaeda-linked group.
The latest bloodshed comes as Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki wages a war against Sunni militants in western Anbar province neighbouring Syria, and has become a base for ISIL.
Despite the offensive, the pace of attacks around the country goes on undiminished.
In other violence yesterday, four people died from bombs on two different mini-buses in Shia sections of Baghdad.
A militant smashed his explosives-packed vehicle into a checkpoint, killing three soldiers and wounding six others in Mushaada, a Sunni district, in northern Baghdad, police said.
In Salahuddin province, a pro-government Sunni-manned checkpoint in the town of Shirqat was hit by a bomb that killed two fighters and wounded four.
Also to the north in Tuz Khurmatu, a bomb in an outdoor marketplace frequented by Shia Turkmen killed two people and wounded 11 others.
REUTERS
