exp Mowaffak Al Rubaie on Baghdad bombing_00004305.jpg
Deadliest blast in Iraq since 2003 kills 215
03:31 - Source: CNN

Story highlights

ISIS claims credit for suicide car bombing in Iraq

Attack hits same Shiite shopping district as bombing in July that killed 200

CNN  — 

ISIS claimed credit for a car bomb attack that killed seven people and wounded 14 others in central Baghdad on Monday, according to security officials.

Amaq, the ISIS-affiliated media outlet, said its “martyrdom operation by a suicide car bomb targeted a Shiite gathering in Karrada neighborhood in Baghdad.”

The blast, which happened shortly before midnight, was near the location of an attack in July that killed nearly 300 people.

That attack, like this one and another in July, targeted a predominantly Shiite neighborhood. ISIS, whose followers adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam, often attack followers of the Shiite branch.

Iraqi women react  at the site of a July 3 suicide-bombing  that killed 292, according to a  toll issued on July 7.

The July attack also involved a suicide truck bomb in Karrada, a busy shopping district in Baghdad. It was one of a string of assaults during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a period of fasting and prayer, and also a time when jihadists launch operations against those they regard as their enemies.

About the same time, ISIS claimed responsibility for a bombing in another Shiite neighborhood, Shaab, that killed one person and wounded five.

The flurry of ISIS strikes during Ramadan came as the United States said the group was losing ground in the warfare across Syria and Iraq, a trend that has continued. Turkey said it seized the last ISIS-held territory on its southern border with Syria on Sunday.

“The Turkish border with Syria was cleared Sunday of Daesh terrorists,” reported Anadolu, the Turkish state-run news agency.

It was unclear Monday whether the new Baghdad bombing was in response to the setbacks in Syria, but the advances by Turkey and the Free Syrian Army were seen as a significant blow against the terrorist organization and its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

“The Jarablus-Azaz line is totally under the control of (the Free Syrian Army), backed by coalition forces,” a Turkish armed forces member told CNN Sunday.

The border town of Jarablus, which Syrian rebels and Turkish forces recently recaptured from the terror group, is a critical location for supplies, money and fighters coming in and out of ISIS-held areas.

CNN’s Mohammed Tawfeeq and Hamdi Alkhshali in Atlanta contributed to this report