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Scores Dead in Baghdad Bombings | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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People gather at the site of suicide bombings in Baghdad. Reuters


At least 44 people were killed and more than 90 wounded in two bombings that hit the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, police and medical sources said, following the bloodiest week of attacks inside Baghdad so far this year.

A suicide bombing in an outdoor market in the northern district of al-Shaab killed 38 people and injured more than 70, while a car bomb in the southern neighborhood of al-Rasheed left six dead and another 21 wounded, the sources said.

A spokesman for Baghdad Operations Command told state television the attacker in al-Shaab, a predominately Shi’ite area, had set off an explosives-filled vest in coordination with a planted bomb.

The initial probe revealed the attacker had been a woman, he said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, though they bore the hallmarks of ISIS, which has been behind recent deadly attacks in the area. ISIS controls significant areas in northern and western Iraq, including the country’s second-largest city of Mosul.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said a political crisis sparked by his attempt to reshuffle the cabinet in an anti-corruption bid was hampering the fight against ISIS and creating space for more insurgent attacks on the civilian population.

Security has improved somewhat in the capital in recent years, even as ISIS militants seized swathes of the country.

But the prospect that the capital could return to the days when suicide bombings killed scores of people every week adds to pressure on Abadi to resolve the political crisis.