At least 20 people died in and around Baghdad on Monday, after militants bombed commercial areas in an attempt to derail an Iraqi effort to retake the city of Fallujah.
Militants have been making deadly attacks in the Iraqi capital in an effort to distract Iraqi forces away from seizing back Fallujah from the Islamic State. Iraqi forces have teamed up with paramilitary troops and aerial support from the U.S.-led coalition to take back the city.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for two of the bombings on Monday, the deadliest of which occurred in the northern, Shaab neighborhood of Baghdad. In that attack, a suicide bomber drove a car laden with explosives into a checkpoint near a commercial area where he killed eight civilians and three soldiers.
In another incident, a bomb in a motorcycle went off at a market in Sadr City, killing three and wounding 10. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks in an online statement, although the Associated Press couldn’t verify the authenticity of the statement.
If Iraqi forces take back Fallujah, the Islamic State will lose one of its last major strongholds in the western part of the country. Iraqi Major Dhia Thamir said Sunday that troops have recaptured 80 percent of the territory around Fallujah since the operation began.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told Fallujah residents Sunday to either leave the city or stay indoors. Government officials and aid groups estimate that more than 50,000 people remain inside the center of the Sunni majority city, as troops plan their final push into the city’s center.
The Islamic State still controls territory in the north and west, along with Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul.
