UPDATED: Islamic State car bomb kills six in Baghdad
An Iraqi officer passing by an explosion site in Baghdad.
The Amaq news agency, which supports Islamic State, said a parked car loaded with explosives in the al-Obeidi area had targeted a gathering of Shi’ite Muslims, whom the ultra-hardline Sunni group considers apostates.
Attacks across Baghdad in the past week, some claimed by the ultra-hardline Sunni group, have killed more than 60 people, with violence escalating as U.S-backed Iraqi forces try to drive the militants from the northern city of Mosul.
Islamic State has lost most of the territory it seized in northern and western Iraq in 2014, and ceding Mosul would probably spell the end of its self-styled caliphate. However, its insurgent capabilities in Iraq and plotting or inspiring attacks on the West are likely to persist.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said recently that violence in Iraq had left 19000 casualties in 2016, but said the count excludes deaths in Anbar during three months of that year.
Observers believe Islamic State have begun to escalate attacks outside the city of Mosul, where the group has been losing ground and personnel since October, so as to relieve pressure on that front by government forces and to divert attention from losses.