Baghdad bomb blast: 165 killed and 225 wounded

The number of people killed in Sunday's suicide bomb attack has risen to 165 and injured 225 others, in two bombings overnight in Baghdad. Most of them in a busy shopping area as residents celebrated Ramadan, interior ministry officials said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated online by supporters of the ultra-hardline Sunni group.

The government has declared three days of mourning after the huge blast.

A van packed with explosives was detonated in the Karrada district while families were shopping for the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.

It is believed to be the deadliest single bomb attack in Iraq since 2007.

Rescuers said, whole families had been killed. many people were badly burned.

Prime Minister, Haider Al-abadi, had ordered the offensive after a series of bombings in Baghdad, saying Falluja served as a launchpad for such attacks on the capital. However, bombings have continued.

A convoy carrying Abadi who had come visited the mainly Shia Muslim area in the hours after the bombing was pelted with stones and bottles by residents, angry at what they felt were false promises of better security.

His office said that Abadi understood the reaction of residents and would increase security by banning "magic wand" fake bomb detector and improving vehicle inspections at roads into the city.

In a statement on the Karrada attack, the Iraqi Justice Ministry said (in Arabic), that a group of prisoners convicted of terrorist crimes would be put to death in the immediate future.

The bombing at around midnight on saturday came a week after Iraqi forces recaptured the city of Falluja from IS.

Falluja was the first iraqi city to fall to Islamic State in January 2014. Abadi said, the next target of the Iraqi forces is Mosul, the de facto capital of the militants and the largest city under their control in both Iraq and syria.

Reports said a refrigerator van had been packed with explosives and left near the popular hadi center.

Footage from the minutes just after the blast showed the whole area engulfed in flames.

In a second attack, roadside explosive device also blew up around midnight in a market in Al-Shaab, a Shi'ite district in the north of the capital, killing another five people.

The white house on Sunday said the attack only strengthened the United States' resolve to confront Islamic State. "We remain United with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy ISIL," said the White House statement, referring to Islamic State.



source:
The Guardian & CNN