At least 13 persons have died after a car bomb exploded outside an ice cream parlour in Baghdad, Iraq. A large explosion in the central Karrada district rocked the Iraqi capital late Monday night.

The Islamic State terrorist group later claimed responsibility for the attack on civilians, where explosives were apparently detonated from inside a parked car. A bombing in the Karrada district last July killed nearly 300 people.

"ISIS terrorists tonight in Baghdad target children & families enjoying time together at an ice cream shop. We stand w/Iraq against this evil," the U.S.'s anti-ISIS envoy Brett McGurk posted on Twitter. </s> Iraqi officials say a car bomb exploded outside a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 22.Hospital and police officials say the attack struck late Monday just days into the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims fast during daylight hours. As families break their fast after sundown, restaurants and cafes in Baghdad quickly fill up.The officials say the bombing targeted a popular ice cream shop in central Baghdad and involved explosives left in a parked car. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State group has claimed similar attacks in the past, including a big truck bombing during Ramadan last year that killed hundreds of people. </s> ISIS militants on Monday claimed responsibility for a deadly nighttime bombing outside a popular ice cream shop in central Baghdad where families with children were enjoying a late-night snack after breaking their fast for Ramadan.

Iraqi officials have raised the death toll to 15.

A closed-circuit camera video of the explosion shows a busy downtown avenue, with cars driving down the street when a massive blast strikes.

Then, a huge fireball engulfs a building, forcing the cars to scramble to get away. Videos of the attack posted on social media show wounded and bloodied people crying for help on the sidewalk outside the ice cream parlor.

Al Jazeera reported that a number of those hurt were on the ground and propped themselves on colorful benches outside the shop. It is unclear how many of the dead were children, but the report pointed out that one girl, wearing a ribbon and bow in her hair, wandered around in an apparent daze after the blast.

Police and security officials say the explosion in the Iraqi capital's bustling Karrada neighborhood early on Tuesday also wounded 27 people. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, saying a suicide bomber carried out the attack. Officials told Al Jazeera that the explosives were placed in a parked car.

"[ISIS] wants Iraqis to fear going out and this is to show they are still present and able to strike the heart of the Iraqi capital, even as they are being defeated on the battlefield," Hayder al-Khoei, a London-based Middle East expert, told Al Jazeera.

Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition against ISIS tweeted, "Isis [IS] terrorists tonight in Baghdad target children & families enjoying time together at an ice cream shop. We stand w/Iraq against this evil.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report </s> Twin car bombings just hours apart have targeted two groups of people going about their daily lives in Baghdad — young families having a late night Ramadan snack and older city residents collecting their pensions.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for both attacks, which killed 21 people, through its affiliate news agency Amaq.

The first bomb, which killed 10 people and wounded 40 others, exploded at an ice cream shop in the heart of Baghdad in the early hours of Tuesday; eyewitnesses described ice cream mixed with blood as the wounded and dead covered the ground.

The second went off as elderly residents lined up outside the General Retirement Department waiting for their pensions to be handed out on Tuesday morning. Eleven people died, another 43 were wounded.

“It was a very, very ugly scene,” said journalist Hareth Al-Harethi, who was 20 meters away from the ice cream shop when the bomb exploded.

“The street was covered in toys, baby bottles, small shoes and men’s hats,” he told CNN.

Harethi said most of the victims he saw were women and children. At the hospital nearby treating the wounded, he saw mothers lying on the floor in grief.

Baghdad’s Karrada street, where the ice cream shop is located, is lined with popular restaurants and cafes. Young people and families usually fill the area at night, especially during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when city streets typically become busy with social gatherings.

The second explosion, which witnesses say “rocked the neighborhood — targeted the elderly.

“Our life has become full of explosions… but this was not normal,” a shop owner near the Retirement Department told CNN.

He said that before the attack, the group of pensioners were waiting to go through security before entering the government building.

Ibrahim Al Zararee, 23, who was driving by when the explosion went off, told CNN that the area, the site of the city’s oldest marketplace, was buzzing with people.

“Every time this happens, everyone is gloomy,” said Al Zararee. “You can see in people’s face that they’re waiting to see what will happen next?”

Responding to the attacks, Iraqi Interior Minister Qasim Mohammad al-Araji said authorities would “track (ISIS) down wherever they may be.”

“They targeted a group of civilians; families, women and children in these nights of Ramadan and this is clear evidence that this organization is a terrorist one trying to kill civilians by any means,” he told journalists.

Last Ramadan, ISIS killed at least 40 people and wounded 74 others in an attack on a Shia mausoleum in Belad, Iraq. It called on its supporters to carry out more attacks during the holy Muslim month.

On Sunday, less than two days before the ice cream shop attack, a suicide bomber killed four security officers at a security checkpoint northeast of Baghdad. Ten people were wounded in the blast, which Iraqi police attributed to ISIS.

In 2014, ISIS took control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Last October, Iraqi forces began an offensive to retake the city and on Saturday, security forces started an operation to take the remaining neighborhoods in western Mosul still under the group’s control. </s> BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle at a popular Baghdad ice cream shop, killing at least eight people, security officials said on Tuesday (May 30).

The overnight attack in the Karrada district in central Baghdad also wounded at least 30 people, officials said.

The Islamic State group-linked Amaq propaganda agency said the suicide bomber targeted a "gathering of Shiites."

IS considers members of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority to be heretics and frequently carries out attacks against them.

The bomber struck just days after the start of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, during which Iraqis often stay out late shopping or socialising after breaking their daily fast.

Images and footage posted on social media showed the devastating impact of the blast, which ripped through the crowded area around Al-Faqma ice cream shop, scattering rubble across the street.

One photo showed cups of ice cream scattered on the blood-stained ground following the attack.

Brett McGurk, the envoy to the US-led anti-IS coalition, condemned the attack and expressed solidarity with Iraq.

"ISIS terrorists tonight in Baghdad target children & families enjoying time together at an ice cream shop. We stand w/Iraq against this evil," McGurk said on Twitter, using an alternate acronym for IS.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since regained much of the territory they lost and are now fighting to retake the last jihadist-held areas in second city Mosul.

But defeats on the battlefield have not prevented IS from carrying out deadly attacks targeting civilians, including a bombing in the Karrada area last year that killed more than 300 people. </s> BAGHDAD (AP) — A car bomb exploded outside a popular ice cream shop in central Baghdad just after midnight on Monday, killing 13 people and wounding 24, hospital and police officials said.

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, which Iraqi officials said involved apparently remotely detonated explosives inside a parked car. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The attack came just days into the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims fast during daylight hours. After sundown, families break their fast and Baghdad’s restaurants and cafes quickly fill up.

Videos posted to social media showed chaotic scenes on the streets surrounding the blast. A number of wounded lay on the ground, others propped themselves up on the colorful park benches outside the ice cream shop. One young girl, wearing a ribbon and bow in her hair, wandered the scene dazed.

Ramadan is often marked by an uptick in violence in Iraq.

Last year, Baghdad was rocked by a huge truck bomb attack that targeted a popular retail district in the city center where young people and families were shopping for new clothes ahead of the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. The blast killed hundreds in the single deadliest event in Baghdad since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. The IS group also claimed responsibility for that bombing, which ultimately led to the resignation of Iraq’s interior minister.

Tuesday’s attack comes as Iraqi troops are slowing pushing IS fighters out of their last strongholds in the northern city of Mosul. Iraqi commanders say the offensive, which recently entered its eight month, will mark the end of the IS caliphate in Iraq, but concede the group will likely increase insurgent attacks in the wake of military defeats.

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This story has been corrected to say that the bomb exploded early Tuesday. </s> BAGHDAD — A massive bombing by the Islamic State group outside a popular ice cream shop in central Baghdad and a rush hour car bomb in another downtown area killed at least 31 people on Tuesday, Iraqi officials said.

Later in the day, bombings in and around the Iraqi capital killed seven more people.

The attacks come as IS militants are steadily losing more territory to U.S.-backed Iraqi forces in the battle for Mosul, the country’s second-largest city. The Sunni extremists are increasingly turning to insurgency-style terror attacks to distract attention from their losses.

The nighttime attack outside the ice cream parlour in the bustling Karrada neighbourhood killed 17 people and also wounded 32, police and health officials said.

A closed-circuit camera captured the moment of the explosion, the video showing a busy downtown avenue, with cars driving down the street when the blast strikes. A huge fireball then engulfs a building, forcing the cars to scramble to get away. Other videos of the attack posted on social media show wounded and bloodied people crying for help on the sidewalk outside the ice cream parlour.

In the second attack, an explosives-laden car went off during rush hour near the state-run Public Pension Office in Baghdad’s busy Shawaka area, killing 14, a police officer said. At least 37 people were wounded in that attack, he added.

In separate online statements, IS claimed responsibility for the two attacks, saying its suicide bombers targeted gatherings of Shiites. The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the statements but they were posted on a militant website commonly used by extremists.

Later Tuesday, seven people died and 19 were wounded in four separate bombings in and around Baghdad, officials said. The attacks targeted commercial areas and a patrol of Sunni anti-IS tribal fighters, they said. No group immediately claimed those attacks.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The attacks came just days into the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims fast during daylight hours. After sundown, families break their fast and Baghdad’s restaurants and cafes quickly fill up with people staying up long into the night.

During Ramadan last year, another section of Karrada was hit by massive suicide bombing that killed almost 300 people, the deadliest single attack in the Iraqi capital in 13 years of war. The attack was also claimed by IS.

Details of how the militants managed to stage Tuesday’s attacks were not immediately clear. After last year’s attack, Iraqi authorities stepped up security in Karrada, especially in the area of the bombing.

In the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi troops are pushing IS fighters out of their last strongholds. Iraqi commanders say the offensive, which recently entered its eight month, will mark the end of the IS caliphate in Iraq, but concede the group will likely increase insurgent attacks in the wake of military defeats. </s> A car bomb in Baghdad has killed at least 48 people and injured dozens of others, according to medics.

The explosion ripped through Iraq's capital shortly before sunset on Thursday.

The car bomb claimed the lives of at least 48 people, and reportedly wounded more than 50 others, after exploding in the southwestern al-Bayaa neighborhood.

Officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said the bombing had targeted cars agents and dealers.

According to reports the bombing has been claimed by the so-called Islamic State. </s> Two car bomb blasts outside a shopping mall in central Baghdad late Friday killed at least 10 people and wounded another 28, police and medical sources said.

One explosion came from a parked car and the other was caused by an explosives-laden vehicle driven by a suicide bomber outside the Nakheel mall, a police colonel said.

The preliminary casualty toll was at least 10 people killed and 28 wounded, the officer said. An official in Baghdad's health department confirmed the figures.

An interior ministry source also confirmed the details of the attack, which he said took place just before midnight (2100 GMT).

The mall opened last year on Palestine street in central Baghdad and shops were likely to have remained open late during the weekend preceding next week's Eid al-Adha feast.

The multi-storey shopping mall houses one of the city's most popular cinemas.

Interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan however said no casualties were reported inside the mall.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the double bombing but all such attacks recently have been claimed by the Islamic State group.

The latest of these, on Tuesday, killed at least seven people near a hospital in Baghdad's busy district of Karrada.

Karrada was still reeling from a July suicide truck bomb explosion that killed more than 300 people, the deadliest single bombing ever to hit the Iraqi capital.

IS has suffered a string of military defeats over the past year and the caliphate it proclaimed in June 2014 seems doomed.

As the jihadist organisation loses territory across Iraq, observers and officials alike have warned that IS may revert to carrying out campaigns of terror attacks instead of attempting to hold fixed positions.
A car bomb explosion outside a popular ice cream parlor in central Baghdad kills 13 people and injures 24. ISIL claims responsibility for the attack.