Three bombs in Baghdad kill 70 in worst violence so far this year

At least 72 people were killed and more than 140 wounded by three bombings in Baghdad today, police and medical sources said, extending the deadliest spate of attacks in the Iraqi capital so far this year. Islamic State claimed one suicide bombing which killed 38 people and wounded over 70 in a marketplace in the northern, mainly Shi'ite Muslim district of al-Shaab. A car bomb in nearby Shi'ite Sadr City killed at least 28 dead and 57 wounded, and another car blew up in the mixed Shi'ite-Sunni neighbourhood of al-Rasheed, south of the capital, killing six and wounding 21, the sources said. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the arrest of the security official in charge of al-Shaab's security after the attack, Abadi's office said in a statement, without giving a reason for the detention. Attacks claimed by IS in and around the city last week killed more than 100 people, the highest death toll in so few days so far this year, sparking anger and street protests over the government's failure to ensure security. Security had improved in Baghdad in recent years as sectarian tensions waned and the city's perimeter was fortified. Islamic State, the ultra-hardline Sunni militants who...