Baghdad twin bombings kill at least 59

Militants attacked an outdoor market in eastern Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 59 people and wounding nearly 100, officials said.

A bomb ripped through the crowded Mredi market in the Shiite district of Sadr City, a police officer said. Minutes later, a suicide bomber blew himself up amid the crowd that had gathered at the site of the first bombing, he added. Interior Ministry spokesman Sad Main said the bombings killed 38 people and wounded another 62.

Multiple hospital officials later increased the toll to 59 dead and 95 wounded.
The attack was the deadliest in a wave of recent explosions that have targeted commercial areas in and outside Baghdad.

In the town of Mahmoudiya, about 30 kilometres south of Baghdad, three shoppers were killed and 10 wounded in a bomb explosion, another police officer said. Four others were killed in a separate bomb attack in Baghdad’s southern Dora neighbourhood, he added.

The Islamic State-affiliated Aamaq news agency later claimed responsibility for the Sadr City bombings.