Baghdad bombings kill at least 69

BAGHDAD // At least 69 people were killed in bombings at outdoor markets and a restaurant in Shiite-dominated neighbourhoods of Baghdad on Tuesday.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the deadliest bombing of the day, in Baghdad’s Shaab neighbourhood, where at least 34 people were killed and 75 wounded.

A roadside bomb exploded outside the concrete blast walls around the open-air market, followed by a suicide bomber as people gathered to help the victims of the first explosion, a policeman said.

Shortly after the Shaab attack, a parked car bomb struck a fruit and vegetable market in the Shiite neighbourhood of Dora, in southern Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding 22, police said.

In Baghdad’s sprawling eastern Shiite district of Sadr City, a suicide car bomb hit a crowded outdoor market, killing 18 people and wounding 35.

In north-east Baghdad, a suicide bomber hit a restaurant in the Habibiya neighbourhood, killing nine and wounding 18.

Commercial and public places in Shiite-dominated areas are among the most frequent targets for the militants seeking to undermine the Iraqi government’s efforts to maintain security inside the capital.

The attacks were the latest to strike far from the front lines in Iraq’s north and west, where forces are battling ISIL.

More than 200 people have been killed in the past week by attacks in and around Baghdad.

Earlier on Tuesday, Iraqi oil workers returned to a natural gas plant north of Baghdad, two days after an ISIL dawn assault killed at least 14 people there, the oil ministry said.

Sunday’s attack in the town of Taji, about 20 kilometres north of Baghdad, saw a suicide car bombing at main gate of the plant, followed by several ISIL fighters breaking in and clashing with security forces for hours before being repelled.

The dead included six civilians and eight security forces, while 27 Iraqi troops were wounded.

Many of the recent attacks were claimed by ISIL.

They come as the extremist group has lost significant amounts of territory to Iraqi ground forces over the past year.

As the ISIL militants are pushed back along front lines, they are increasingly turning to guerrilla attacks to detract from their losses, Iraqi and coalition officials say.

Iraq is also in the middle of a political crisis that has gridlocked its government.

While Iraqi security officials are concerned political instability is detracting from the fight against ISIL, some analysts say the extremists are exploiting the political crisis to try to further rob the government of legitimacy.

In 2014 after ISIL blitzed across Iraq and declared a caliphate on the territory it holds there and in Syria, the extremists were estimated to hold nearly a third of Iraqi territory.

Since then Iraq’s government says the group’s hold has shrunk to just 14 per cent of Iraq.

But despite successful battles against ISIL, Iraq’s political leadership is in disarray.

Parliament has not met for more than two weeks after supporters of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada Al Sadr stormed Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone.

The breach followed repeated delays to government reform legislation that politicians claimed would fight Iraq’s entrenched corruption.

*Associated Press