Suicide Truck Bomb Leaves at Least 47 People Dead in Iraq

The site of a car bomb attack in northern Baghdad, Iraq. Photo by EPA

At least 47 people were killed and many other injured as a suicide bomber driving a truck full of explosives attacked a security checkpoint on a strategic motorway near the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad on Sunday.

According to the BBC, thirty nine of the dead were civilians, with the rest being police officers.

Al Jazeera reports a higher death toll, with the number of victims being sixty.

The driver blew up the fuel tanker as dozens of cars had lined up at the checkpoint.

Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on a pro-IS news agency website.

IS has recently carried out a series of attacks against Iraqi security forces.

Over the past week a double bombing at a market in a neighbourhood of Baghdad claimed the lives of more than seventy people, while a suicide attack at a funeral north of the Iraqi capital left around thirty people dead on the following day.

Fifty people were killed and more than 150 other injured in a suicide bombing at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Hilla in March 2014.

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