Twin suicide blasts in Iraq kill 30 people, injured many

In Iraq, at least 30 people killed in a twin suicide bomb blasts in central Baghdad on Thursday, Iraqi state media said, the deadliest attack in the city in three years. At least 28 people were killed and another 73 wounded in the attack on a huge open-air market for second-hand clothes in the Iraqi capital's Tayaran Square.The market had been teeming with people following nearly a year of restrictions imposed across the country in a bid to halt the spread of Covid-19. The spokesman for the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Major General Yahya Rasoul, said in a statement, " twin terrorist attacks in the Bab al-Sharqi district in Baghdad, Thursday morning, when two suicide bombers blew themselves up which killed and injures many civilians.”

According to an interior ministry statement, the first suicide bomber rushed into the market, claiming to feel sick.Once a crowd of people had gathered around him, he detonated his explosives.As people then flocked around the victims, a second attacker detonated his bomb, the ministry said. Paramedics were working to remove casualties, and Iraq's health ministry said it had mobilised medics across the capital.

Thursday's attack was the bloodiest incident in Baghdad since January 2018, when a suicide bomber also in Tayaran Square killed more than 30 people.Suiicide bombings had been commonplace in Baghdad during the sectarian bloodletting that followed the US-led invasion of 2003. The latest attack comes as Iraqis prepare for an election, events which are often preceded by bombings and assassinations.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi had originally set this year's general election for June, nearly a year ahead of schedule, in response to widespread protests in 2019. But authorities are in talks over rescheduling them to October in order to give electoral authorities more time to register voters and new parties.