A series of bombings targeting public places and Iraqi security forces killed 20 people in and around Baghdad on Tuesday, officials said.
The deadliest attack took place late on Tuesday night, when a car bomb went off near restaurants and shop in Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad, killing 10 people, including three women. The bombing also wounded 24 people, police officials said.
Several shops and cars were burned in the attack and police sealed off the blast area, AP reported.
Earlier in the day, a roadside bomb struck an army patrol in Youssifiyah, just south of the Iraqi capital, killing three soldiers and one civilian. At least eight people were wounded in that attack, the officials said.
Two separate explosions near a vegetable market and on a commercial street killed six people and wounded 21 in western Baghdad.
Also on Tuesday, three militants dressed in army uniforms killed at least eight people in a government building in Iraq’s western Anbar Province. The IS militant group claimed responsibility for the incident, saying that their gunmen had killed “dozens of apostates.”
Baghdad and outlying areas see near-daily bombings, and many of them are later claimed by the IS, which seized large parts of the country during a stunning blitz last year.
The IS has carried out regular attacks in and around Baghdad, mainly targeting the security forces and the country’s Shia majority, while battling Iraqi forces on multiple fronts elsewhere in the country.
