BAGHDAD, Iraq: At least 18 persons were killed and about 35 others injured in a suicide blast that occurred in northern Baghdad’s Kadhimiya district on Monday.
The Iraqi officials said that the blast took place inside a restaurant in crowded Aden Square, a predominantly Shia part of Baghdad.
No one claimed responsibility for the suicide blast immediately. However, the Iraqi officials usually blame such attacks on militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a jihadist rebel group that controls territory in Iraq and Syria and also operates in eastern Libya.
The Monday’s attack comes two days after the country’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi lifted a 12-year-old curfew in Baghdad in order to help normalize life in the capital. The curfew was introduced as a security measure after the US-led invasion in 2003.
On Saturday, at least 40 persons lost their lives while 85 others sustained injuries in three separate bomb explosions around the Iraqi capital.
