At least 82 killed in overnight Baghdad bombings

[Reek]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/dozens-k...ht-baghdad-bombings-sumaria-tv-012811286.html

At least 82 people were killed and 200 injured in two bombings that hit Baghdad around midnight Saturday, nearly all of them in a blast targeting a busy shopping area as they celebrated Ramadan, police and medical sources said Sunday.

A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in Karrada in central Baghdad, killing 80 people and injuring at least 200. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, in a statement circulated online by supporters of the ultra-hard line Sunni group. It said the blast was a suicide bombing.

Karrada was busy at the time as Iraqis eat out late during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends next week. Police said the toll could rise as more bodies could be lying under the rubble of devastated buildings.

The bombing is the deadliest in the country since Iraqi forces last month dislodged Islamic State militants from Falluja, their stronghold just west of the capital that had served as a launch pad for such attacks.

A video posted on social media showed people throwing pavement stones at the SUV convoy of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Karrada, a largely Shi'ite are with a small Christian community, venting their anger at the inability of the security forces to protect the area.

Another video posted on social media showed a large blaze in the main street of Karrada after the blast. Reuters TV footage taken in the morning showed at least four buildings severely damaged or partly collapsed.

A roadside explosive device also blew up around midnight in a market in al-Shaab, a popular Shi'ite district in the north of the capital, leaving at least two killed, police and medical sources said.

Iraqi forces on June 26 declared the defeat of IS militants in Falluja, a historic bastion of Sunni insurgency, following a month of fighting. Abadi ordered the offensive after a series of deadly bombings that hit Shi'ite districts of Baghdad.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban are getting out of control. Turkey, Iraq, Kabul, Dhaka. They are everywhere.

 

[Webfoot Hero]

ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban are getting out of control. Turkey, Iraq, Kabul, Dhaka. They are everywhere.

Seems the frequency of these large-scale, mass casualty attacks is increasing as the final days of Ramadan come to an end. Some are saying ISIS is using Ramadan as a calling to violence while others view these attacks as desperation moves to cover up for their massive losses in territory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/world/middleeast/ramadan-isis-baghdad-attacks.html

 

[Victarion]

At least the people there seem to want someone to do something about the radicals. Hopefully we'll get some programs in place to get them trained so that they can handle these jackals on their own.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Ramadan is really the most vulnerable time to strike. Most people are tired from fasting without food or drink all day, stores open late, people go shopping at night. The people that want to do something against the militant extremists are the ones they are specifically targeting in some of these attacks, such as the one in Kabul few days ago that killed 30 Police recruits and a few civilians.

 

[chaseter]

At least the people there seem to want someone to do something about the radicals. Hopefully we'll get some programs in place to get them trained so that they can handle these jackals on their own.

We've been doing that for decades and the weapons and vehicles usually end up in the hands of the terrorists.

 

[Thundercrack85]

It's because it's Ramadan. It's starting to become a trend where every year Islamic terrorist attacks spike during this time. Last year there were 3,000 "religiously motivated deaths" on record during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.

 

[Victarion]

I don't get this - isn't there a small group that the Muslims consider "people of the book" that are generally exempt from forceful conversion, or harm in general?

 

[DA_Champion]

The US interventions in Iraq and Libya have both been unmitigated humanitarian disasters.

 

[tzarinna]

This is absolutely enough already. ****ers.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Death toll is now 165.