The death toll from two car bombs claimed by the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa on Sunday rose to 32 and was expected to keep rising, police and medical sources said.
At least 75 people were wounded in the blasts, which hit a local government building and a nearby bus station, the sources said. The first blast was near a local government building and the second one about 60 meters away at a bus station, police sources were quoted as saying by Reuters.
Unverified online photographs showed a large plume of smoke rising above the buildings as well as burnt out cars and bodies on the ground at the site of one of the blasts, including several children. Police and firefighters carried victims on stretchers and in their arms. The rise of the ultra-hardline insurgents has exacerbated Iraq’s sectarian conflict, which emerged after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
