The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for the double suicide bombing in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on Thursday, killing at least 32 people and wounded more than 100.
The target had been Shia Muslims, a statement from the Sunni Islamist militant group’s Amaq news agency said.
It was the biggest suicide attack in Baghdad for three years.
The bombers blew themselves up among a crowd of shoppers at a second-hand clothes market in Tayaran Square.
The admission by the jihadist group, made via its accounts on the messaging app Telegram, came several hours after the attack.
Suicide bombings have become rare in Baghdad since IS was militarily defeated in the region at the end of 2017.
IS once controlled 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of territory from eastern Iraq to western Syria and imposed its brutal rule on almost eight million people.
Despite IS’s defeat on the battlefield, a UN report last August estimated that more than 10,000 IS fighters remained active in Iraq and Syria.
Sleeper cells continue to wage a low-level insurgency, operating mainly in rural areas and targeting security forces.
In Thursday morning’s attack, the first bomber rushed into the market and gathered a crowd around him by claiming to feel sick, an interior ministry statement said.
The site of a suicide attack in a central market is seen in Baghdad, Iraq January 21, 2021. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani 
One stallholder told Reuters news agency, “He pressed the detonator in his hand. It exploded immediately and people were torn to pieces.”
The second bomber blew himself up as others came to help the victims, according to the ministry.
Witnesses said Tayaran Square had been busy following the easing of almost a year of COVID-19 restrictions.
Iraqi President Barham Saleh led condemnation of the latest attack, saying the government would “stand firmly against these rogue attempts to destabilise our country”.
Pope Francis, who plans to visit Iraq in March, sent a message to Mr Saleh “deploring this senseless act of brutality”.
The US, EU and UN also deplored the attack.
BBC
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