At Least 115 Killed in Iraq in Devastating ISIS Car Bombing
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a car bombing at a market in Khan Bani Saad, in Iraq’s Diyala province, that killed at least 115 adults and children on Friday, Al Jazeera reports. The group said it was targeting Shiites celebrating the end of Ramadan.
Around 170 people were wounded in the blast. “Some people were using vegetables boxes to collect body parts of kids’ bodies,” police major Ahmed al-Tamimi told Reuters. He described the damage as “devastating.”
A police officer told the news agency that rescue crews were still retrieving bodies from the debris on Friday. The provincial government has declared three days of mourning.
Meanwhile, officials in neighboring Saudi Arabia announced that more than 400 people had been arrested in an anti-terrorism sweep. From the the Associated Press:
The Saudi crackdown underscores the OPEC powerhouse’s growing concern about the threat posed by the Islamic State group, which in addition to its operations in Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings aimed at Shiites in the kingdom’s oil-rich east and in next-door Kuwait.
The Saudi Interior Ministry accused those arrested over the “past few weeks” of involvement in several attacks, including a suicide bombing in May that killed 22 people in the eastern village of al-Qudeeh. It was the deadliest militant assault in the kingdom in more than a decade.
It also blamed them for the November shooting and killing of eight worshippers in the eastern Saudi village of al-Ahsa, and for behind another attack in late May, when a suicide bomber disguised as a woman blew himself up in the parking lot of a Shiite mosque during Friday prayers, killing four.
The Interior Ministry said that those arrested included people suspected of running militant websites used to recruit potential ISIS fighters.
Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.