Four bombs kill 20 people in Baghdad

BAGHDAD — Four bombs struck across Baghdad on Thursday, mainly in Shiite Muslim districts of the Iraqi capital, killing 20 people, medical and police sources said.

Sunni militants from Islamic State, who control much of northern and western Iraq as well as a belt of territory around Baghdad, regularly target Shiite neighbourhoods of the city.

The deadliest explosions were two car bombs in the densely populated Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, which killed 15 people and wounded 51 others, the police and medics said.

A roadside bomb near a small restaurant in the northern Shiite neighbourhood of Shaab killed three people and wounded nine, police said.

Earlier a bomb killed two people near the Green Zone district which houses most government buildings, security and medical sources said.

The bomb struck 200 metres from the edge of the zone, they said. In response, security forces closed two nearby bridges that span the Tigris River, linking eastern and western Baghdad.

Bombings are frequent in the Iraqi capital but mostly strike neighbourhoods some distance from the central district, which houses the Iraqi parliament and the US embassy and is a base for many Iraqi politicians.