Car bombs kill at least 32 in southern Iraq

The death toll from two car bombs claimed by Islamic State in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa rose to 32 and was expected to keep rising, police and medical sources said on Sunday (May 1).

At least 75 people were wounded in the blasts, which hit a local government building and a nearby bus station, the sources said

The first blast was near a local government building and the second one about 60 metres (65 yards) away at a bus station, police sources said.

Unverified online photographs showed a large plume of smoke rising above the buildings as well as burnt-out cars and bodies on the ground at the site of one of the blasts, including several children. Police and firefighters carried victims on stretchers and in their arms.

Islamic State holds positions mostly in Sunni areas of the country’s north and west, far from the mainly Shi’ite southern provinces where Samawa is located. Such attacks are relatively rare.

The rise of the ultra-hardline Sunni insurgents has exacerbated Iraq’s sectarian conflict, mostly between Shi’ites and Sunnis, which emerged after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.