UPDATE - Car bombing kills at least 31 in Iraqi capital

*UPDATES HIGHER DEATH TOLL

By Ali Jawad

BAGHDAD (AA) – At least 31 people were killed by a car-bomb that shook Iraqi capital Baghdad on Monday, according to a local police officer.

The car-bomb exploded in a busy public square in eastern Baghdad’s Shia-majority Sadr City district, Police Officer Ahmed Khalaf told Anadolu Agency.

Another 42 people, he said, had been injured by the blast.

"The powerful blast occurred when the square was teeming with laborers and passersby," Police First Lieutenant Hatem al-Jabri told Anadolu Agency earlier.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for Monday’s bombing, but Iraqi officials typically blame such attacks on the Daesh terrorist group, which overran vast swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq in 2014.

Last Saturday, at least 27 people were killed -- and dozens more injured -- in a twin bombing claimed by Daesh in the Iraqi capital.

Officials in Baghdad say such seemingly random attacks come as retaliation by the terrorist group for an ongoing Iraqi army campaign aimed at recapturing the Daesh-held city of Mosul.