At least 32 people have been killed and 100 others injured in a twin suicide bombing in a busy commercial area in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, reports the BBC.
The bombers blew themselves up among a crowd of shoppers at a second-hand clothes market in Tayaran Square.
The last deadly suicide attack in the city was in January 2018, when 35 people were killed in the same square.
No group has said it carried out the latest attack, but suspicion will fall on the jihadist group Islamic State.
The Iraqi government declared victory in its war against IS at the end of 2017.
However, sleeper cells continue to wage a low-level insurgency in the country, operating mainly in rural areas and targeting security forces.
Iraqi military spokesman Yehia Rasool said Thursday morning’s attack was “carried out by two suicide bombers who detonated themselves when pursued by security forces” through the Bab Sharqi area.
But other accounts suggested that the assailants moved freely through Tayaran Square, which was busy following the easing of almost a year of coronavirus-related restrictions.
An interior ministry statement said the first bomber rushed into the market, claiming to feel sick. When people gathered around him he detonated an explosive belt he was wearing.
Ambulances rushed to the scene to take the many wounded to hospitals across Baghdad.
“One [bomber] came, fell to the ground and started complaining ‘my stomach is hurting’ and he pressed the detonator in his hand. It exploded immediately,” one stall holder told Reuters news agency. “People were torn to pieces.”
The second bomber blew himself up as others came to help the victims, according to the interior ministry. Some reports said that he posed as an injured person.
A video posted on social media purportedly showed the second bomb exploding among a small crowd on a street. Other footage showed bodies strewn across the ground in the aftermath.
Iraqi President Barham Saleh said the targeting of innocent people in Baghdad “at this specific time confirms the attempt by the groups of darkness to target all national entitlements and our people’s aspirations for a safe future”.
Pope Francis, who plans to visit Iraq in March, sent a message to Mr Saleh “deploring this senseless act of brutality”.
The UN mission in Iraq also strongly condemned the attacks. “Such a despicable act will not weaken Iraq’s march towards stability and prosperity,” a statement said.
Ali al-Bayati, a member of the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, tweeted that the bombings were an “indicator of the return of terrorism” and “the weakness of security institutions”.
The attacks were not immediately claimed, but Civil Defence chief Maj Gen Kadhim Salman said: “[IS] terrorist groups might be standing behind” them.
Suicide bombings have become rare in the capital since the military defeat of IS by Iraqi security forces, who were supported by a US-led multinational coalition and Iran-backed paramilitary forces.
