40 Martyred in Daesh Terrorist Attack on Holy Shrine in Iraq
The attack occurred as Shias commemorating the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr visited the mausoleum of Sayid Mohammed bin Ali al-Hadi (AS), the son of a revered Shia imam. The shrine is located in the Balad district, some 80 miles north of Baghdad.
Daesh, in a statement carried by its Amaq news agency, claimed responsibility for late Thursday’s attack, which continued a wave of violence against Shia Muslims and civilians in cities and towns, the Wall Street Journal reported .
The extremist group increasingly has reverted to guerrilla warfare as its battlefield defeats mount elsewhere in Iraq.
Its fighters detonated a massive truck bomb early Sunday in Baghdad’s upscale and predominantly Shia Karrada district, killing 292 people in the deadliest single attack since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. In May, a weeklong series of attacks across the city killed more than 100 people.
