BAGHDAD – At least 15 people died Saturday and 70 were wounded in a series of attacks chiefly launched against Baghdad districts with a Shi’ite majority, Iraqi security officials told Efe.The wave of explosions coincides with a wide offensive by jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in several Iraqi provinces including Anbar, where on Saturday within a few hours they took hundreds of hostages at a university in Ramadi.
A total of five car bombs and an improvised explosive device (IED) went off almost simultaneously in the capital.
The deadliest attack took place in the downtown Baghdad district of Karrada, near the Babilon Hotel, where four people died and 15 were wounded when a car bomb exploded.
Another of the vehicles blew up in the New Baghdad district on the city’s south side, leaving three people dead and injuring another 14.
The perpetrators of these attacks are as yet unknown, though they all bear the imprint of the ISIL, which since last Thursday has kept security forces in check.
The extremists broke into a university in Ramadi on Saturday after detonating two IEDs and clashing with security guards of the building, where they remained entrenched for several hours.
Combined forces of the army and police rushed to the scene and managed to evacuate the hostages and later fought the radicals in several Ramadi neighborhoods.
Combat between the ISIL and Iraqi troops also continued Saturday in the northern city of Mosul, where over the past 48 hours some 30 jihadists, 25 police and 10 soldiers have been killed.
Iraq is going through a surge in sectarian violence and terrorist attacks that cost the lives of more than 8,860 people in 2013, of whom 7,818 were civilians, according to United Nations figures
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