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At least 93 people have been killed in three car bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police and medics say.
The deadliest struck a market in the mainly Shia Muslim area of Sadr City during the morning rush hour, killing 64 people and wounding 87 others.
In the afternoon, two suicide bombers targeted police checkpoints in the northern district of Kadhimiya and in Jamia, in the west, leaving 29 dead.
So-called Islamic State (IS) has said it was behind all three attacks.
The Sunni jihadist group, which controls large swathes of northern and western Iraq, has frequently targeted Shia, whom it considers apostates.
The target of Wednesday’s first bombing was the busy market in Sadr City. Police and witnesses said the explosives were hidden under fruit and vegetables loaded on a pick-up trick.
The deadliest attack targeted a busy market in a Shia district in northern BaghdadThe explosives were reportedly hidden under a load of fruit and vegetables on a pick-up truck.
They said the driver disappeared after parking the vehicle in the market, shortly before the massive blast turned the area into an inferno.
“It was such a thunderous explosion that jolted the ground,” Karim Salih, a 45-year old grocer, told the Associated Press. “The force of the explosion threw me for meters away and I lost consciousness for a few minutes.”
Many victims were women inside a beauty salon, including several brides who appeared to be getting ready for their weddings, police sources told
Sadr City, a huge, largely Shia suburb, has frequently been the target of bomb attacks by Sunni extremists but this is one of the worst, says the BBC’s
IS said one of its suicide bombers had carried out the attack, and that it was aimed at Shia militiamen, an account that seems to be at odds with reports from the scene, our correspondent adds.
Hours later, a suicide car bomb exploded outside a police checkpoint in Kadhimiya, a mostly Shia district that is the location of an important shrine, officials said.
