{"id":23733,"date":"2016-03-07T00:27:02","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T00:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/at-least-60-killed-in-iraq-suicide-bombing\/"},"modified":"2016-03-07T00:26:24","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T00:26:24","slug":"at-least-60-killed-in-iraq-suicide-bombing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/at-least-60-killed-in-iraq-suicide-bombing\/","title":{"rendered":"At least 60 killed in Iraq suicide bombing"},"content":{"rendered":"

{ISIL claims responsibility for attack on security checkpoint at Hilla, south of Baghdad, in continuing wave of violence.
\n}
\nA suicide bomber has killed at least 60 people and wounded dozens more by driving his explosives-laden fuel truck into a security checkpoint south of Baghdad.<\/p>\n

The suicide bomber attacked the checkpoint on Sunday on a strategic highway near Hilla, 90km from the Iraqi capital, reports said.<\/p>\n

Another 70 people were wounded in the blast, police officials said.<\/p>\n

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on the website of the sympathetic Amaq news agency.<\/p>\n

“A martyr’s operation with a truck bomb hit the Babylon Ruins checkpoint at the entrance of the city of Hilla, killing and wounding dozens,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said: “It was apparently a suicide bombing, at a checkpoint that is usually manned by Iraq soldiers and federal police forces. A long line of cars along that key road were also caught in the blast.”<\/p>\n

Hilla is the capital of Babylon province, a predominantly Shia region with some Sunni presence.<\/p>\n

“It’s the largest bombing in the province to date,” Falah al-Radhi, the head of the provincial security committee, told Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

“The checkpoint, the nearby police station were destroyed as well as some houses and dozens of cars.”<\/p>\n

Among the dead were 39 civilians, while the rest were members of the security forces.<\/p>\n

Attack in Anbar<\/p>\n

A separate attack on Sunday killed several members of the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Khalidiya, near Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.<\/p>\n

Iraqi soldiers, with the help of US-led coalition fighter jets, are trying to advance towards areas controlled by ISIL fighters around Ramadi.<\/p>\n

ISIL has carried out a number of deadly assaults against Iraqi security forces in recent days.<\/p>\n

In the past week, a double bombing at a market in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighbourhood killed more than 70 people.<\/p>\n

The following day a suicide attack at a funeral north of Baghdad killed about 30.<\/p>\n

\"Besides<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{ISIL claims responsibility for attack on security checkpoint at Hilla, south of Baghdad, in continuing wave of violence. } A suicide bomber has killed at least 60 people and wounded dozens more by driving his explosives-laden fuel truck into a security checkpoint south of Baghdad. The suicide bomber attacked the checkpoint on Sunday on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23733"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23733"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}