At least 76 people were killed and 212 wounded yesterday in a blast claimed by Islamic State in Baghdad’s Sadr City, police and medical sources said, one of the biggest attacks on the capital since Haider al-Abadi became Prime Minister a year ago.
“A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up inside Jamila market at around 6am,” police officer Muhsin al-Saedi said. “Many people were killed and body parts were thrown on top of nearby buildings.”
A statement circulated online by supporters of Islamic State said the blast had targeted what it called a stronghold of the “charlatan army” and Shi’ite Muslim militias.
The market in the Shi’ite neighbourhood is one of the biggest in Baghdad selling wholesale food items. A Reuters witness at the site saw fruit and vegetables mixed with shrapnel littering the blood-soaked blast crater.
Many people were killed and body parts were thrown on top of nearby buildings
Smoke rose from charcoaled debris. Rescuers pulling bodies from the rubble stumbled over sheet metal that had formed the walls and roofs of vendors’ stands.
People gathering at the scene cried and shouted the names of missing relatives; others cursed the government.
“We hold the government responsible, fully responsible,” witness Ahmed Ali Ahmed said, calling on the authorities to dispatch the army and Shi’ite militias to man checkpoints in the capital.
Abadi took office last summer following the army’s collapse in the face of Islamic State’s takeover of the northern city of Mosul that left the Baghdad government dependent on militias, many funded and assisted by neighbouring Iran, to defend the capital and recapture lost ground.
Security forces and militia groups are fighting Islamic State in Anbar province, the sprawling Sunni heartland in western Iraq. In Baghdad, Abadi has proposed sweeping reforms aimed at reducing corruption and patronage, the biggest changes to the political system since the end of US military occupation.
Meanwhile the governor of Iraq’s Anbar province said yesterday he was sacking all aides as part of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s crackdown on corruption and incompetence to boost the government in its battle against Islamic State insurgents.
The announcement came two days after Parliament unanimously approved Abadi’s sweeping reform plan – the biggest shake-up in Iraq’s governing system since the US military occupation.
His reform drive is especially important in Anbar, the Sunni heartland in western Iraq where the Baghdad government is focusing its offensive against Islamic State, which has seized large swathes of the country’s north and west including the Anbar capital Ramadi.
Anbar Governor Sohaib al-Rawi said he was dismissing all of his aides and advisers as well as district managers who had been in their posts for more than four years or had performed poorly.
Echoing language used by Abadi, Rawi said future appointments would be made “on the basis of experience and competence” and “according to need and specialisation”. He said the changes came in response to calls for change from Iraqis and as part of Abadi’s reform plan.
Abadi’s initiative eliminates entire layers of government, scraps sectarian and party quotas for state positions, reopens corruption investigations and gives the premier the power to fire regional and provincial bosses.
Abadi, a Shi’ite Muslim, has sought to transform a system which critics say has encouraged graft and incompetence, depriving Iraqis of basic services while undermining government forces in the battle against Islamic State.
Large tracts of Iraq have fallen to the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim militants and the central government faces a financial crisis because of the collapsing price of Iraqi oil exports.