At least 35 people have been killed in a suicide car bomb attack in a busy square in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, security and medical sources have said.
61 other people were injured by the blast in the predominantly Shia Muslim eastern district of Sadr City, the BBC reports.
The Sunni jihadist group Islamic State said it had carried out the attack, which “targeted a gathering of Shia.”
Another car bomb later exploded in the car park of the nearby Al-Kindi hospital, killing three people.
On Saturday, IS said it was behind two suicide bombings at a market in Baghdad that left 28 people dead. Again, the reported targets were Shia, whom it regards as apostates.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the assailant had pretended to be a man seeking to hire labourers, and that once they had gathered around his vehicle he detonated the bomb.
Nine of the victims were women in a minibus that was passing through the square at the time, according to the Reuters news agency.
Three policemen stationed at a local checkpoint were also among those killed.