Suicide car bomb blast kills at least 32 in Baghdad


A suicide car bomb attack in a densely-populated neighborhood of Baghdad Monday killed at least 32 people and left dozens wounded, police and hospital officials said.

Many of the victims were daily laborers waiting for jobs at an intersection in Sadr City, a sprawling majority Shiite neighborhood in the northeast of the capital that has been repeatedly targeted.

Pictures posted on social media shortly after the explosion showed a huge plume of black smoke billowing into the sky and seriously injured people being evacuated.

According to a police colonel, at least 32 people were killed and dozens wounded in the blast, the second major attack in Baghdad in three days.

At least 27 people were killed by twin explosions in a busy market area in central Baghdad on Saturday, in what was the deadliest such attack in the Iraqi capital in two months.

The Daesh terrorist organisation took responsibility for the blast in Sadr City via its propaganda agency Amaq later on Monday, the terrorist group was also responsible for the double bombing on New Year's Eve.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are currently fighting to push Daesh from the northern city of Mosul, the terrorists' last major stronghold in the country, but are facing fierce resistance.

Observers have voiced fears that the group, once it definitively loses its status as a land-holding force, could increasingly revert to targeting civilians in Iraq's cities or plot attacks on the West.