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Wave of bombings in Baghdad kills 27 people: police, medics

20 July 2014 04:17 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. At least 27 people were killed in a wave of bombings in mostly Shi'ite Muslim areas of Baghdad on Saturday, police and medics said, in the deadliest day of attacks in the capital since a Sunni insurgency overran large parts of Iraq's north last month, APA reports quoting Reuters.

In the first explosion, a suicide car bomber drove into a police checkpoint, killing nine people including seven policemen and wounding 21 people in the Abu Dsheer district in the south of the capital, the sources said.

Four other car bombs killed a total of 19 people: one in the Bayaa district in southwestern Baghdad, one in the western district of Jihad and two in northern Baghdad's Kadhimiya, the site of a major Shi'ite shrine.

One person was killed when a bomb laid on the side of a road exploded in the mixed Sunni-Shi'ite district of Saydiya in southern Baghdad later in the day.

No person or group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that seized large parts of northern Iraq last month, has claimed several suicide bombings in the capital. Its latest claim was for a bombing that killed three people on Thursday in the heart of the city.

Baghdad has experienced few attacks compared with other areas targeted by the Islamic State's offensive last month, though bombs still hit the capital on a fairly regular basis.

At least 5,576 Iraqi civilians have been killed since January, when Sunni insurgents led overran the city of Falluja in the western province of Anbar, the United Nations said on Friday.

The U.N. said more than 1.2 million people have been displaced this year. More than 600,000 of them have fled their homes since early June.

The patchwork of Sunni insurgents led by Islamic State, which swept across northern Iraq last month, advanced to within 70 km (45 miles) of Baghdad. The Iraqi army and allied Shi'ite militia have been trying since then to regain the territory.