Bombing kills eight in Baghdad

BAGHDAD: A powerful bombing in the north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, has killed at least eight people.

The bomb attack on Saturday targeted a police checkpoint on a busy street in Kadhimiyah neighbourhood of Baghdad, police and hospital officials said. Ten other people were injured.

They added that all those killed were civilians and several police officers were among the wounded. An attacker detonated his explosives at the checkpoint near Aden Square, the officials said.

There has yet to come a claim of responsibility for the attack, which had the hallmarks of similar bombings by Daesh, a Takfiri terrorist group that once controlled territories west and north of Iraq.

Baghdad has seen fewer massive bomb attacks by Daesh since Iraq’s security forces managed to purge the terrorist group from major strongholds late last year.

The terrorists used to carry out bombings in crowded places on an almost daily basis last year.

Daesh began wreaking havoc in Iraq in the summer of 2014 when it captured major cities and towns in the western province of Anbar and the northern province of Mosul.

The terrorists even advanced to areas near Baghdad and for a while controlled the city of Tikrit, the birthplace of former strongman Saddam Hussein, in the north.

However, Iraq’s army teamed up with local fighters and retook those cities and towns one by one with the last and most significant being Mosul, the second largest city, which was liberated in December.