SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraqi security forces thwarted an attempted attack against civilians in Baghdad on Wednesday ahead of Ashura commemoration, authorities said.
Baghdad Operations Command said its forces thwarted a “cowardly terrorist act” that intended to harm civilians in the Iraqi capital.
“An intelligence force noticed a masked person riding a motorcycle whose actions aroused suspicion in al-Wash district,” the operations command said in a statement.
“The suspect was pursued and forced to throw weapons and explosive devices that he held in the Karkh area,” it added.
The security forces continued the process of searching to find the suspect who is still at large, it stated.
The Iraqi forces have tightened security in the country as Shia Muslims mark Ashura across Iraq on Thursday.
A suicide bomber killed 30 people and injured more than 50 others in a crowded market in Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad on Monday, the eve of Eid al-Adha.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the group’s Nasheer news agency said on Telegram. It said one of its militants blew up his explosive vest among the crowds.
It was the third time an explosion has hit Sadr, the mainly Shia Muslim neighborhood of Baghdad, in recent months, with the last one in June wounding 11 people.
In April, the Sunni Muslim militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on a market in Sadr City, Baghdad’s main Shi’ite Muslim neighborhood, that killed four people and wounded 20.
Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack last January that killed more than 30 in the crowded Tayaran Square market in central Baghdad – Iraq’s first big suicide bombing for three years.
