IS conflict: Dozens killed in Baghdad car bombings

At least 93 people have been killed in three car bomb attacks
in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police and medics say.
The deadliest killed 84 people and wounded 87 in a market in
the mainly Shia Muslim area of Sadr City.
Later two suicide bombers targeted police checkpoints in the
northern district of Kadhimiya and in Jamia, in the west,
leaving 29 dead.

The so-called Islamic State (IS) group claimed the attacks -
the worst day of violence in Baghdad so far this year.
The Sunni jihadist group, which controls large swathes of
northern and western Iraq, has frequently targeted Shia, whom
it considers apostates.The target of Wednesday's first bombing was the busy market
in Sadr City.
Police and witnesses said the explosives were hidden under
fruit and vegetables loaded on a pick-up trick.
They said the driver disappeared after parking the vehicle in
the market, shortly before the massive blast turned the area
into an inferno.
"It was such a thunderous explosion that jolted the ground,"
Karim Salih, a 45-year old grocer, told the Associated Press.
"The force of the explosion threw me for meters away and I
lost consciousness for a few minutes."
Many victims were women inside a beauty salon, including
several brides who appeared to be getting ready for their
weddings, police sources told Reuters news agency. The
bodies of two men believed to be grooms were found in an
adjacent barber shop, they added.
Sadr City, a huge, largely Shia suburb, has frequently been the
target of bomb attacks by Sunni extremists but this is one of
the worst, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Iraq.
IS said one of its suicide bombers had carried out the attack,
and that it was aimed at Shia militiamen, an account that
seems to be at odds with reports from the scene, our
correspondent adds.
Hours later, a suicide car bomb exploded outside a police
checkpoint in Kadhimiya, a mostly Shia district that is the
location of an important shrine, officials said.
Both police officers and civilians were among the at least 17
people who died and 43 who were injured, officials said.
At around the same time, another suicide car bomb targeted a
checkpoint in the Jamia district, which is predominantly Sunni,
killing 12 people and wounding 3