SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 41 IN FOOTBALL PITCH ATTACK

Onlookers and security forces gather at the site where the attack took place

A suicide bomber blew himself up on a football pitch as trophies were being presented after a local tournament south of Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 41 people, police and medics said. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack that wreaked carnage on the field where supporters, officials and security forces were gathered after the game. "They were just handing the trophy to the winners, when the suicide attacker blew himself up in the crowd," a police captain from the village, Al-Asriya, said. The village is near Iskandariyah, a town about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the capital.

The police captain said more than 105 people wounded in the blast. A medic at Iskandariyah hospital confirmed the toll and warned it could rise further. The US State Department condemned the suicide bombing and sent condolences to the bereaved. "The United States remains committed in its support to the Iraqi people and the unity of Iraq," State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said in a statement.

VILLAGE MAYOR AMONG THE DEAD
Pictures posted on social media of the blast site showed mangled goal posts smeared with blood. "The suicide bomber cut through the crowd to approach the centre of the gathering and blew himself up as the mayor was presenting awards to the players," said Ali Nashmi, an 18-year-old eyewitness. The mayor, Ahmed Shaker, was among the dead. "The mayor died in hospital as a result of the serious wounds he suffered in the blast," the medic said, adding that one of his bodyguards and at least five members of the security forces were also among those killed.

The jihadist IS group promptly released a statement on social media claiming responsibility for the attack and posted a picture of the purported bomber. "Our knight immersed into their crowds, until he detonated his belt, turning them into scattered parts," the statement said, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group. The bomber was identified as Saifullah al-Ansari. In its statement, IS claimed that the blast had killed more than 60 and wounded more than 100. Haidar Kadhem, 20, survived the explosion.

"I was maybe 50 metres from the spot. The blast was extremely loud," he said. "Most of the crowd were young people, I could see them strewn across the field, some dead, others wounded asking for help. It was just chaos," he said. Iskandariyah is part of a mixed Sunni-Shiite area south of Baghdad which was once dubbed "the triangle of death" and has been affected by sectarian violence in the last decade. Pushing back IS in this region after the jihadists took over large parts of the country in 2014 was one of the priorities of the government and allied Shiite militias. That was achieved in a few months and IS has been largely eradicated from the area but violence — sectarian and criminal — has remained frequent.


(Source : ahmedabadmirror.com)

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