Iraq: Suicide attack on marketplace leaves 40 people dead and 55 wounded

Iraqi officials say over 40 people were killed in the Diyala province which borders Iran. At least 24 people were killed and 55 others wounded near the eastern Iraqi city of Baquba when a car bomb exploded in a marketplace on Monday (10 August), security and medical sources said.

In a separate blast to the east of the city, a further seven people were killed and 25 wounded, the sources said.

Although Iraqi security forces have taken Diyala from the Daesh jihadist militant group early this year, the unsettled province continues to be the scene of fierce fighting, sporadic bomb attacks and armed assaults.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, according to a Reuters report, but this latest violence comes less than a month after a bombing claimed by Islamic State in the nearby town of Khan Bani Saad, which left more than 100 people dead.

In January Iraqi officials declared victory over the radical jihadist group in the Diyala province, after security forces and Shi'ite paramilitaries drove them out of towns and villages there, but the Islamic State militants have remained active.

Pro-government forces are struggling to uproot Islamic State from large areas of territory in northern and western Iraq which the group seized in a bold sweep across the Syrian border last summer.

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