Separate bombings kill five in violence-prone Baghdad

By Ibrahim Salih

BAGHDAD (AA) - Two members of the Shia Hashd al-Shaabi militia and three civilians were killed Thursday in three separate bombings that shook capital Baghdad, according to a local police source.

Baghdad police officer Yasser al-Mustafa told Anadolu Agency that one bombing had targeted a vehicle carrying Shia militiamen in the city’s southern Al-Doura district.

"Two Hashd al-Shaabi militiamen were killed in the attack and another three injured," he said.

Established in 2014, the Hashd al-Shaabi has been accused in the past of committing abuses against residents of Sunni-majority areas that it has "liberated" from the Daesh terrorist group.

In a separate incident the same day, al-Mustafa said, two civilians were killed and another six injured when a bomb went off near Baghdad’s southwestern Euphrates Market district.

Yet another civilian was killed -- and five others injured -- when a bomb went off in the capital’s southeastern Al-Arifiyah neighborhood, according to the police officer.

No group has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s violence, but the Iraqi authorities generally hold Daesh responsible for such seemingly random attacks.

Iraq’s security situation has deteriorated markedly since mid-2014, when Daesh captured the northern city of Mosul -- now the target of a massive army offensive -- and overran vast swathes of territory in the country’s north and west.