ISIL claims responsibility for Baghdad's suicide attack

ISIL claimed responsibility early on Jan. 22 for Baghdad's suicide attack, via the group's Amaq news agency on its Telegram channel.

Two men blew themselves up in a crowded Baghdad market on Jan. 21, killing at least 32 people in Iraq's first big suicide bombing for three years, authorities said, describing it as a possible sign of the reactivation of the ISIL.

The rare suicide bombing hit the Bab al-Sharqi commercial area in central Baghdad amid heightened political tensions over planned early elections and a severe economic crisis. Blood was splattered on the pavement of the busy market amid piles of clothes and shoes as survivors took stock of the disarray in the aftermath.

Iraq's health minister Hassan Mohammed al-Tamimi said at least 32 people were killed and 110 were wounded in the attack. He said some of the wounded were in serious condition. Iraq's military previously put the number of dead at 28.

The Health Ministry announced that all of its hospitals in the capital were mobilized to treat the wounded.
Maj. Gen. Tahsin al-Khafaji, spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, which includes an array of Iraqi forces, said the first suicide bomber cried out loudly that he was ill in the middle of the bustling market, prompting a crowd to gather around him , and that's when he detonated his explosive belt. The second detonated his belt shortly after, he said.

"This is a terrorist act perpetrated by a sleeper cell of the Islamic State," al-Khafaji said. He said ISIL "wanted to prove its existence" after suffering many blows in military operations to root out the militants.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis denounced the attack in Baghdad as a "senseless act of brutality" and urged Iraqis to keep working to replace...