At least 35 people were killed last night and another 60 others wounded when a series of three suicide bombers attacked the Mausoleum of Sayid Mohammed bin Ali al-Hadi, a Shia shrine near Balad, north of Baghdad. In a now-familiar pattern, an initial suicide bomber detonated his explosives amid people celebrating Eid al-Fitr, allowing other attackers to fire into the crowd before another detonated his own bomb. A third man wearing explosives was killed before he could detonate them. The area may have also been struck by mortar fire at the start of the attack, according to reports. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. Prominent Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has responded to the attack by deploying his militia around the shrine and also dispatching forces to guard the shrine of Imam Ali al-Hadi in Samarra, another sacred Shia site that was targeted by al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2006.
Facing mounting protests over the security situation in Baghdad, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi fired the security chief for the city, as well as other security and intelligence officials, according to a statement from his office. The Minister of the Interior offered his resignation on Tuesday, but Abadi has not accepted it. The death toll from the car bomb attack in Baghdad’s Karrada district on Sunday has now grown to 292 dead, with more than 200 others injured, Iraqi officials said yesterday; it is the single deadliest attack in Iraq since at least 2003.
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