A suicide bomber has rammed an explosives-laden fuel truck into a security checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing dozens of people and wounding many more, officials said.
It was the third massive bombing in and around the Iraqi capital in a little over a week, and bore the hallmarks of Islamic State, which has carried out scores of suicide attacks against security forces and the country’s Shia majority.
Crowds gathered at the scene, picking through rubble and twisted car parts in search of survivors. Smoke rose from smouldering vehicles that had been lined up at the main checkpoint at the northern entrance to the city of Hillah, about 60 miles (95km) south of Baghdad.
“The blast has completely destroyed the checkpoint and its buildings,” Falah al-Khafaji, a senior security official in Hillah, said as he stood at the edge of the blast site. “More than 100 cars have been damaged.”
Hillah is in the country’s mainly Shia south, far from the frontlines of the war against Isis.
Among the estimated 47 dead were 39 civilians, while the rest were members of the security forces. The attacker struck shortly after noon local time when the checkpoint was crowded with dozens of cars, a police officer said. He added that up to 65 people were wounded.
A medical official confirmed the casualty figures. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release information.
There has been a rise in the number of violent attacks in Iraq over the past month, with Isis claiming responsibility for suicide attacks in which more than 170 people have died. The attacks follow a string of advances by Iraqi forces backed by US-led airstrikes, including in the western city of Ramadi, which was declared fully “liberated” by Iraqi and US-led coalition officials last month.
Such attacks “force the government and the militias to look back and reallocate resources and reassess”, said Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, referring to the mainly Shia militias fighting alongside government forces.
Isis still controls large swaths of Iraq and neighbouring Syria and has declared a “caliphate” on the territory it holds. The extremist group controls Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, as well as the city of Fallujah, 40 miles (65km) west of Baghdad.
At least 670 Iraqis were killed last month, of whom about two-thirds were civilians, according to United Nations figures.
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