Image: Reuters
The attack was as grissly and gruesome. The images as heartrending.the recent attack on Bangladesh blows up the much touted hype that only non-Muslims are the target of ISIS. This has been given greater currency by obvious attempts by the Bangladeshi killers to project this view when they made those who could not recite the Koran 'go free' even as they hacked to death, others. Faraz Hossain was with Tarishi Jain and Abinta Kabir and all three lost their lives at the hands of terrorists.
Nearly 131 people were killed and 200 wounded according to Al Jazeera in two bombings overnight in Baghdad, most of them in a busy shopping area, Karada, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood in central Baghdad, even as residents celebrated Ramadan. Reuters reported 120 persons killed. Both news sources attributed their news to police and medical sources and said that the attack on the shopping area of Karrada is the deadliest since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces last month scored a major victory when it dislodged Islamic State from their stronghold of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital. It is also the deadliest so far this year. These bombings, it appears were a retaliation after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had ordered the offensive after a series of bombings in Baghdad, saying Falluja served as a launchpad for such attacks on the capital. However, bombings have continued.
Many of the victims were women and children who were inside a multi-storey shopping and amusement mall. Dozens burned to death or suffocated, a police officer is reported to have said.There were fears the death toll could rise as more bodies could be lying under the rubble of devastated buildings.
According to these media reports, a convoy carrying Abadi who had come to tour the site of the bombings was pelted with stones and bottles by residents, angry at what they felt were false promises of better security. The attack happened when a refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up in the central district of Karrada, killing 115 people and injuring at least 200. There was no room for ambiguity as the ISIS (Islamic State) claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated online by supporters of the ultra-hardline Sunni group. It said the blast was a suicide bombing.
Again, like in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the location was chosen well. Karrada was busy at the time as Iraqis eat out and shop late during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends next week with the Eid al-Fitr festival. A White House release said on Sunday that the attack only strengthened the United States' resolve to confront Islamic State. "We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy ISIL," said the White House statement, referring to Islamic State. Selective concerns ?
Image: Reuters
Videos posted on social media showed people running after the SUV convoy of Abadi as he left Karrada after touring the scene, throwing pavement stones, bottles of water, empty buckets and slippers, venting their anger at the inability of the security forces to protect the area.In a separate blast also on Sunday morning, at least five people were killed in a popular market in the mainly Shia neighbourhood of al-Shaab.
There were conflicting reports on the cause of the explosion.Some sources said it was a bombing, while the interior ministry said it was caused by an accidental fire.
Abadi declared three days of mourning for the victims, according to state-run media that also cited him saying he understood the angry reaction of residents.Another video posted on social media showed a large blaze in the main street of Karrada, a largely Shi'ite district with a small Christian community and a few Sunni mosques. Reuters TV footage taken in the morning showed at least four buildings severely damaged or partly collapsed, including a shopping mall believed to be the target, and gutted cars scattered all around.
The toll of victims climbed during the day, all through Sunday, as rescuers pulled out more bodies from under the rubble and people succumbed to their injuries.
Comments posted on social media accused security forces of continuing to use fake bomb detectors at checkpoints filtering traffic in Baghdad, five years after the scandal broke out about a device commonly known as the 'magic wand'. A police officer in Baghdad confirmed these hand-held ADE 651 detectors were still in use. They were sold to Iraq and other nations by a British businessman who was jailed for 10 years in 2013 in Britain for endangering lives for profit.
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Image: Al Jazeera
AL SHAAB ATTACK
There are also reports that, In a second such attack, a roadside bomb also blew up around midnight in a market in al-Shaab, a Shi'ite district in the north of the capital, killing at least two people, police and medical sources said.Iraqi forces on June 26 declared the defeat of IS militants in Falluja, a bastion of Sunni insurgency, following a month of fighting.Now the militants were "trying to compensate for their humiliating defeat in Falluja," said Jasim al-Bahadli, a former army officer and security analyst in Baghdad."It was a mistake for the government to think that the source of the bombings was restricted to just one area," he said. "There are sleeper cells that operate independently from each other."
The assault on Falluja was part of a wider offensive against Islamic State, which seized swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014. Abadi said the next target of the Iraqi forces is Mosul, the de facto capital of the militants and the largest city under their control in both Iraq and Syria.
This attack blows up the much touted and reported hype that only non-Muslims are the target of ISIS. This has been given greater currency by obvious attempts by the Bangladeshi killers to project this view when they made those who could not recite the Koran 'go free.' Young Faraz Hossain, a Bangladeshi student at Emory University in the US, was killed alongside 19 others including Abinta Kabir, who was studying at the same US university, one of the victims of the Dhaka cafe shooting was a Muslim student who, despite being allowed to leave by the militants responsible, refused to desert his friends and fellow hostages, the Independent had reported.