IS suicide truck bomb attack kills 47 in Iraq
Print Edition
A suicide truck bomb attack claimed by the Islamic State group killed 47 people at a crowded checkpoint south of Baghdad yesterday, the deadliest such attack in Iraq this year.
The massive blast completely destroyed the checkpoint manned by security forces guarding the northern entrance to Hilla, an area that had recently been spared such attacks.
“The suicide bomber used an explosives-laden truck, at a time when there was dense traffic,” Faleh al-Radhi, the head of the security committee at Babil provincial council, said.
A doctor at Hilla hospital put the number of people killed by the blast at 47, including around 20 members of the security forces, and said at least 72 people were also wounded.
Radhi and police officers confirmed the casualty toll, the heaviest from any car bomb attack in Iraq this year.
The blast went off at around 1:00pm, a time of day when vehicles are usually bumper-to-bumper, waiting to be checked by security personnel.
An AFP photographer at the scene said there was almost nothing left of the checkpoint.
He said one distraught man was asking rescuers, survivors and journalists to help him retrieve the body of his baby child from under the wreckage of a car.
“When I got to the scene, there were people whose clothes were still on fire, they were screaming,” said Hamza Kadhem, a 35-year-old laborer who was near when the blast went off.
The doctor at Hilla hospital said at least 11 of the wounded were in a very serious condition.
Mohammed Jamal, a 27-year-old civil servant, was sitting in traffic when the explosion ripped through the vehicles.
“My car windows just shattered with the blast,” he told AFP from the emergency ward.
“After that, I can’t remember much, I was lost in this chaos and found myself at Hilla hospital, I’m not sure how.”
Karim Sahi, 35, a taxi driver reached by phone, was also close to the checkpoint.
“When we heard the blast, we rushed to the scene. There were bodies everywhere, people running in all directions,” he said.
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