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HomeUncategorizedDeath toll in Iraq bombing claimed by IS rises to 73

Death toll in Iraq bombing claimed by IS rises to 73

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The death toll from a car bombing south of Baghdad claimed by the Islamic State group rose to 73 on Friday, including about 40 Iranian pilgrims, Iraqi hospital and police officials said, the deadliest IS attack in four months.

The officials said 65 other people were wounded in the attack, which took place on Thursday night at a gas station on a major highway near the city of Hilla, about 95 kilometers (60 miles) south of the Iraqi capital.

IS claimed the attack in a brief statement on its Aamaq media arm, saying it was a suicide truck bomb. Earlier, Iraqi officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, had put the death toll at 56.

The attack appears to have targeted a bus with Iranian pilgrims heading home after a major Shia religious observance in the holy city of Karbala.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Thursday night as saying that 80 people were killed, including 40 Iranians. Conflicting death tolls are common in the aftermath of large attacks.

The attack was the deadliest by IS since a massive car bomb killed around 300 people in Baghdad in July. It also came a day after some dozen small-scale bombings in and around Baghdad killed 31 people and wounded more than a 100 — a particularly bloody day even by the standards of the Iraqi capital, which has for more than a decade endured near-daily violence blamed on IS or its forerunner, al-Qaida in Iraq, and which mostly targeted members of Iraq’s Shia majority.

The gas station bombing underlined the continuing ability of IS to stage high-profile terror attacks even as a massive Iraqi military operation is underway to dislodge its fighters from its last major urban stronghold in Iraq, the northern city of Mosul. The offensive is aided by volunteer militiamen and the U.S.-led coalition, which has mostly been pounding IS targets in Mosul with airstrikes.

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