3 bombings in & around Baghdad kill 18, injure 45

At least eighteen people have been killed and 45 more injured when three bombs went off in separate locations in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, police and medics said.

The worst explosion hit the Sunni-dominated Saydiya district of southwestern Baghdad. A bomb in a parked car killed eleven people and injured 30 more, sources said. 

The majority of the victims were Shiite Muslim pilgrims who were on their way to the shrine, in the Iraqi capital, of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, a great-grandson of Prophet Mohammad.

Security forces have cordoned off the scene and transported the injured to a nearby hospital, and the dead bodies for forensic examination, a police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told local Alsumaria TV.

Several explosive devices planted in Tarmia, a town near the Iraqi capital, left two dead and six injured.

Also a roadside bomb in the town of Khalisa, 30km from Baghdad, killed one and injured two.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks in an online statement.

Baghdad has been hit by a wave of suicide attacks, with dozens of people dying in the space of a few weeks.

On Saturday, a car bomb killed at least 21 people near the Iraqi capital. The bomb targeted a Shiite open air market in Nahrawan. Terror group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) claimed responsibility for the bombing.

On April 22, nine people were killed following a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in southwest Baghdad, also claimed by IS. The blast took place after Friday prayers, when a bomber detonated his explosive vest.