Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi on Saturday announced the arrest of a “terror cell” that is allegedly behind a Baghdad market bombing that killed dozens. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
The bombing sparked revulsion and renewed fears about the reach of the IS, which lost its last territory in Iraq after a grueling military campaign that ended in late 2017, but retains sleeper cells in remote mountains and desert areas.
The bombing took place on Monday at the Al-Woheilat market in Sadr City, a Shiite suburb of the capital, and officially killed 30 people.
Photo: AFP / IRAQI PRIME MINISTER’S PRESS OFFICE
“We have arrested all the members of the cowardly terrorist cell that planned and perpetrated the attack,” al-Kadhemi wrote on Twitter. “They will be put before a judge today.”
Al-Kadhemi did not specify the number of people arrested, but a source at the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior said that the suspects were anticipated to make televised “confessions,” a common occurrence for major crimes in Iraq.
Deadly attacks were common in Baghdad during the sectarian bloodletting that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, as well as when the IS swept across much of the country in a lightning 2014 offensive.
Iraq declared the IS defeated in late 2017 after a fierce three-year campaign, and attacks became relatively rare in the capital until January, when a twin IS-claimed suicide bombing killed 32 people.
The US-led coalition that supported Iraq’s campaign against the IS has over the past year significantly drawn down its troop levels, citing increased capabilities of Iraqi forces.
Elsewhere in the country, an armed drone targeted a military base in the Kurdistan region that hosts US troops, but without casualties, the US-led coalition said on Saturday.
It was the latest in a spate of attacks on US military and diplomatic facilities in the country.
US facilities in Iraq have been hit by 50 rocket and drone attacks so far this year — assaults Washington consistently blames on Tehran-backed factions operating within Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance.
The Iraqi Resistance Coordination Committee on Friday threatened to continue the attacks unless the US withdraws all its forces and ends the “occupation.”
Most of the US troops deployed in the coalition, which helped defeat the IS in Iraq, were withdrawn under former US president Donald Trump.
Those who remain are officially classed as advisers and trainers for Iraqi military and counterterrorism units.
Al-Kadhemi is expected to meet US President Joe Biden in Washington today to discuss a possible full US troop withdrawal from the country.
However, analysts say that events in the wake of a partial US troops withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 — notably the rise of the IS — might make Biden reluctant to authorize a full pullout, as that might give the group room to regenerate.
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