A suicide bomber killed at least
nine people when he detonated an explosive vest after Friday prayers at a
Shi'ite Muslim mosque in south western Baghdad.
Iraqi
police and hospital sources said the second suicide attacker at the mosque in
al-Radwaniya district was shot and killed by security forces before he could
set off his explosives.
Meanwhile,
a security and medical sources confirmed that a separate bomb went off on
Friday in the district of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, killing two and wounded
nine.
There
was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which wounded at least
25 others, but Islamic State militants battling government forces in the north
and west have regularly targeted Shi'ite areas in the capital.
The rise
of the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim group, has exacerbated a long-running
sectarian conflict in Iraq, mostly between Shi'ites and Sunnis, which emerged
after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The
Iraqi government has retaken several major cities from the Islamic State in the
past year and slowly pushed them back towards the Syrian border.
The
authorities have said they want to recapture the northern city of Mosul this
year, but Iraqi officials privately question whether that is possible.
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