Iraqi PM Orders Arrests over Baghdad Suicide Bombing

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi announced on Saturday that members of a "terrorist cell" suspected of being behind a Baghdad suicide bombing that killed 30 people five days ago have been arrested.

"We have arrested all the members of the cowardly terrorist cell that planned and perpetrated the attack on Al-Woheilat market" in Sadr City, a Shiite suburb in the capital, "and they will be put before a judge today," Kadhimi said on Twitter.

Notably, a suicide bomber has killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 60 in a crowded market in the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad on Monday, the eve of the Eid al-Adha festival, security and hospital sources said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the group’s Nasheer news agency said on Telegram. It said one of its militants blew up his explosive vest among the crowds. Hospital sources said the death toll could rise as some of the wounded were in critical condition.

Al-Kadhimi, held an urgent meeting with top security commanders to discuss the attack, the premier’s office said in a brief statement.

President Barham Salih posted a tweet saying: “With an awful crime they target civilians in Sadr city on the eve of Eid … We will not rest before terrorism is cut off by its roots.”

In April, the Sunni Muslim militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on a market in Sadr City, Baghdad’s main Shia Muslim neighbourhood, that killed four people and wounded 20.

Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in January that killed more than 30 in the crowded Tayaran Square market in central Baghdad – Iraq’s first big suicide bombing for three years.

Large bomb attacks were once an almost daily occurrence in the Iraqi capital but have dwindled since an Islamic State invasion of northern and western Iraq was defeated in 2017.