Baghdad command denies reports about car bomb blast near party’s HQ
The picture shows flames coming out of a booby-trapped car in Baghdad.
Baghdad (Iraqinews.com) – The Baghdad Operations Command denied on Wednesday media reports published on social networking websites about detonating a booby-trapped vehicle near the headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) party in western Baghdad.
In a statement, a copy of which was obtained by Baghdad Today news website, the command described as “groundless” the news published on the INC’s Facebook page about a car bomb blast near its headquarters at al-Mansour district, west of Baghdad, on Tuesday night.
The command explained that security forces were suspicious about a car parked near the party’s premises, but after inspecting it they found out that it was not booby-trapped.
The command, therefore, called on all media outlets and news websites to seek accuracy before publishing any news of such a kind and to take information only from reliable sources.
The Iraqi capital has seen almost daily bombings and armed attacks against security members, paramilitary troops and civilians since the Iraqi government launched a wide-scale campaign to retake Islamic State-occupied areas in 2016. Though most of the daily bombings go without a claim of responsibility, Islamic State has declared it had been behind many.
A total of 115 Iraqi civilians, excluding policemen, were killed and another 250 injured in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in Iraq in January 2018, according to casualty figures recorded by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).