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Suicide bomber kills at least nine in Baghdad: police, medics

Suicide bomber kills at least nine in Baghdad: police, medics

By REUTERS

Firemen inspect the site of a blast caused by a fire at a weapons storage in eastern Baghdad, Iraq, on September 2, 2016. Photo: Reuters

A suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest in a predominately Shi'ite Muslim district of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and wounding 30, police and medical sources said. The blast targeted a commercial street in the eastern Baghdad al-Jadida area of the Iraqi capital, they said, adding that the death toll could climb further. Islamic State has intensified bomb attacks in government-held areas of Iraq this year as it loses territory to US-backed Iraqi government forces and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias. The ultra-hardline Sunni group claimed a truck bombing in July that killed at least 324 people in the Karrada shopping area of Baghdad - the deadliest single attack in Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. The group continues to control vast areas in northern and western Iraq, including the city of Mosul, captured in 2014.