KIRKUK: A suicide car bomber killed at least 32 people in an attack on a busy market in a town north of Baghdad on Tuesday, officials said.
Dozens more were wounded when the attacker blew up the vehicle in the middle of the fruit and vegetable market in Tuz Khurmatu.
Mayor Adel Shakur Al-Bayati said 32 people were killed.
A doctor at the town’s general hospital put the number of wounded at 80, some of them lightly injured.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Suicide attacks in Iraq are usually claimed by Daesh, which has suffered a string of military defeats and last week lost control of the last town the militants held in the country.
Tuz Khurmatu is home to a mixed Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen population. It was the scene of deadly violence in mid-October when Iraqi forces retook it from Kurdish control in response to a Kurdish independence referendum. Turkmen MP Niazi Maamar Oglu said an attack of Tuesday’s magnitude had not been seen in the town “for years.”
A security chief in Salaheddin province, Mehdi Taqi, told AFP that a curfew was imposed immediately after the bombing.
“There are still some areas west of Tuz Khurmatu that serve as hideouts for Daesh and we will soon be carrying out operations to clean them up,” Taqi added.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Haider Abadi said on Tuesday Daesh has been wiped out in Iraq from a military perspective, adding he would only announce final victory after routing its militants in the desert.
Political disagreements will pave the way for the militant group to carry out attacks, however, he said, in reference to the central Baghdad government’s dispute with the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.
Suicide car bomb kills 32 in Iraq
Suicide car bomb kills 32 in Iraq
