PHOTO: People gather at the site of a suicide bombing in a marketplace in Baghdad’s al-Shaab district on Tuesday (Wissm al-Qkili/Reuters)
The Islamic State has killed at least 63 people in its fifth consecutive day of bombing in Iraq’s capital Baghdad.
Three bombs on Tuesday also wounded more than 100 people.
A female suicide bomber in a marketplace in the northern, mainly-Shia district of al-Shaab killed 38 people and wounded more than 70, while a car bomb in mainly-Shia Sadr City in eastern Baghdad killed 19 and injured 17. Another car bomb, in the Shia-Sunni southern neighbourhood of al-Rasheed, killed six and wounded 21.
The Islamic State has stepped up its attacks in the past week, including a triple bombing last Wednesday with 88 victims, 63 of them in Sadr City.
See Iraq Developing: Islamic State Car Bombs Kill 88 in Baghdad
The attacks have come amid a political crisis in which parties have blocked Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s declared campaign against corruption and his attempt to reconstruct his Cabinet with technocrat Ministers. Parliament has not convened in weeks, and protesters briefly occupied the fortified Green Zone at the end of April.
The bombings also may take attention from a high-profile offensive in Anbar Province in western Iraq by Iraqi security forces and militia.
The force, backed by aerial operations by a US-led coalition, is hoping to retake the town of Rutbah on the main road to Jordan.
Rutbah has been held by the extremists since 2014 and is also a support zone for operations in Syria.
