The first blast was near a local government building and the second one about 60 metres away at a bus station, police sources said.
Unverified online photographs showed a large plume of smoke rising above the buildings as well as burnt out cars and bodies on the ground at the site of one of the blasts, including several children.
Police and firefighters carried victims on stretchers and in their arms.
IS holds positions mostly in Sunni areas of the country's north and west, far from the mainly Shia southern provinces where Samawa is located. Such attacks are relatively rare.
The rise of the ultra-hardline Sunni insurgents has exacerbated Iraq's sectarian conflict, mostly between Shias and Sunnis, which emerged after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
- Meanwhile, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered the arrest of demonstrators who stormed the country's Parliament building yesterday.
Supporters of Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were protesting at the failure of the Mr Abadi to approve a new cabinet as part of measures to combat corruption and ease sectarian tensions.
- Elsewhere, Iraqi Kurdish and Turkmen Shiite forces have recaptured the town of Bashir from the IS.
Pressure for an operation to retake the town had grown in March after IS launched a chemical attack from Bashir on the nearby town of Taza that killed at least three children.
Kurdish peshmerga forces and Turkmen Shiites from the Popular Mobilisation units, a militia umbrella organisation, took part in the operation, officials said.
Source: AFP/Reuters/rte.ie
1/5/16
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Islamic State claims twin bombings in southern Iraq that killed 33...
ReplyDeleteThe Islamic State group claimed responsibility for rare bombings in southern Iraq that killed at least 33 people on Sunday.
The jihadist organisation claimed in a statement posted on social media that two suicide attackers detonated car bombs targeting members of the security forces in the city of Samawa.
"The hospitals have received 33 dead," a senior official in the Muthanna health department, which covers Samawa, told AFP. An officer in Muthanna Operations Command confirmed the toll......i24news.tv
1/5/16