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The death toll
made Wednesday's three suicide bombings at a busy market and two
checkpoints the bloodiest day in Baghdad so far this year.
Police sources said Thursday's bombers had approached a police
station in Abu Ghraib from two directions before detonating
their explosives.
Baghdad Operations Command, one of the security apparatuses
charged with protecting the capital, said in a statement that a
third assailant was killed on approach of the police station.
Amaq news agency, which supports Islamic State, said two
militants had clashed with police at al-Zeidan station before
detonating their explosives-filled vests.
Baghdad became the target of daily bombings a decade ago
following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam
Hussein. Violence against security forces and Shi'ite Muslim
civilians is frequent, even as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have
rolled Islamic State back from swathes of the country's west and
north seized in 2014.
A recent surge in bombings has added to criticism of Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi, who already faces a political crisis
over his attempts to overhaul his cabinet as part of an
anti-corruption bid.
Lawmakers have failed to convene a session since protesters
loyal to a powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a vocal
advocate of dismantling Iraq's quota-based governing system,
breached the heavily-fortified Green Zone district two weeks ago
and took over the parliament complex for several hours.
(Reporting by Kareem Raheem and Omar Fahmy in Cairo; Writing by
Stephen Kalin; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
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