BAGHDAD // At least five Iraqi policemen were killed and 12 wounded on Thursday in a twin suicide bombing that hit a police station in Baghdad’s westernmost suburb.
It came a day after a wave of ISIL-claimed attacks killed nearly a hundred people in the Iraqi capital.
Wednesday’s bombings, the deadliest to hit Baghdad this year, came at a time of turmoil and deadlock in Iraq’s government and parliament. Funerals were underway on Thursday for many of those killed in the attacks, which included a car bomb that struck a crowded outdoor market in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.
In Thursday’s attack, two suicide bombers targeted the police station in the western suburb of Abu Ghraib at dawn.
The first bomber blew himself up at the station’s gate, followed by the second who detonated his explosives inside the building, a police officer said.
The Sadr City bombing on Wednesday killed 68 people while two more car bombs elsewhere in Baghdad killed at least 30.
After the attacks, grieving relatives and family members lit candles at the scene of the Sadr City bombing as calls came from mosques in Baghdad for blood donations. Many of the victims were being buried on Thursday in the southern Shiite city of Najaf, where a sprawling cemetery is located near a shrine for a revered Shiite imam.
Although security has improved in the Iraqi capital, Wednesday’s attacks demonstrated ISIL’s ability to launch devastating assaults in the heart of Baghdad. Back-to-back bombings on February 28, also in Sadr City, killed 73 people.
ISIL still controls significant areas of northern and western Iraq, including the country’s second biggest city, Mosul. Commercial and public places in Shiite-dominated neighbourhoods are among the most frequent targets for the extremists who want to undermine government efforts to maintain security in the capital.
The group released a video on Wednesday that showed five alleged “spies” being shot dead in Iraq by young men from a crowd assembled for the execution.
The 12-minute film released on social media mimics a participatory television show, in which members of the public are interviewed and invited to take part.
Produced by ISIL’s branch in Iraq’s Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, the video starts with footage of destruction that it presents as the result of US-led air strikes against the group.
It also shows the bodies of dead children.
The video moves on to the “confessions” of five men from Mosul, detailing how they passed on intelligence on the activities and positions of the extremists in Nineveh, most of which is still controlled by ISIL.
Five ISIL executioners are then shown standing behind the five accused, who are wearing orange jumpsuits, holding knives.
One fighter turns to the crowd: “O Muslims, who amongst you wants to get closer to God through these disbelieving apostates?”
Hands go up, he picks “volunteers” and the five ISIL fighters in combat gear are replaced by “civilians” to whom they give their handguns to shoot the accused in the back of the head.
Residents are subsequently interviewed about the group execution, with one saying he wished he had been selected to take part.
* Associated Press, Agence France-Presse
