The Prime Minister’s office stated on Monday, August 28, that Iraq executed three individuals who had been found guilty of involvement in a 2016 bombing in a Baghdad shopping area that resulted in the deaths of over 320 people. The attack had been claimed by the Islamic State group.
Iraq has hanged three people convicted for a 2016 bombing that killed more than 320 people in a Baghdad shopping district and was claimed by the Islamic State group, the prime minister’s office said on Monday.
The bombing was one of the world’s deadliest after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
At least 323 people were killed in the car bombing that sparked raging fires in Baghdad’s Karrada shopping area early on July 3, 2016 as it teemed with people ahead of the Eid al-Fitr festival ending the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
It was one of the deadliest attacks to ever hit Iraq.
Police Major General Talib Khalil Rahi said at the time that the bomber’s minibus had been loaded with plastic explosives and ammonium nitrate.
The initial blast killed a limited number of people, but flames spread and trapped people inside shopping centers which lacked emergency exits, Rahi told a news conference a few days later.
The raging fires made it difficult to identify the dead.
IS had overrun large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but by the time of the Karrada blast Iraqi forces had regained significant territory from the jihadists, who hit back against civilians in response.
Khalil Wakim, with AFP
