Horror as bombs go off in Baghdad during holy month of Ramadan, killing 83 people and wounding 175

At least 83 people have been killed and 176 wounded in two separate bomb attacks in Baghdad. 

The bombings came near the end of the holy month of Ramadan when the streets were filled with young people and families out after sundown. In the first attack, a car bomb exploded in the Karada district in central Baghdad, killing 78 people and
wounding 160. Shortly afterwards, an improvised explosive device went off in eastern Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 16.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in the Karada district in a communique distributed on Telegram and Twitter, which also claimed a suicide car bomber had targeted Shiites.

The attack set buildings in the area ablaze, reducing some to charred hulks and also torching shops.

Men carried the bodies of two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-filled street as firefighters worked at the site.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the second bombing. 
Nearly an hour after the attack in central Baghdad, ambulances could still be heard rushing to the site.  

An eyewitness said the explosion set off fires at nearby clothing and cell phone shops.

The Baghdad attacks come just over a week after Iraqi forces declared the city of Fallujah 'fully liberated' from ISIS. 

Over the last year, Iraq forces have racked up territorial gains against ISIS, retaking the city of Ramadi and the towns of Hit and Rutba, all in Iraq's vast Anbar province west of Baghdad.

Despite the government's battlefield victories, ISIS has repeatedly shown it remains capable of launching attacks far from the front-lines.

ISIS still controls Iraq's second largest city of Mosul as well as significant patches of territory in the country's north and west.

At the height of the extremist group's power in 2014, ISIS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control. 

Now, ISIS is estimated to control only 14 per cent of Iraqi territory, according to the office of Iraq's prime minister.

Source: Daily Mail