Iraq Football Pitch Carnage Kills 32

Local Editor

The village of al-Asriya, south of Baghdad, prepared Saturday to bury its sons, killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up after a football tournament.

The attacker, who himself looked like a teenager on a photo distributed by Daesh [the Arabic acronym for the "ISIS" terrorist group] that claimed the attack, cut through the crowd when trophies were being presented.

Eventually, an official in the health directorate of the Province of Babel reported that: "There are 32 dead and also 84 wounded, 12 of whom are in critical condition."
"Seventeen of those killed are boys aged between 10 and 16," the official added.

The village of al-Asriya lies near Iskandariyah, a town about 40 kilometers south of the capital.

The bomber detonated his suicide vest late afternoon Friday as local officials were handing trophies to the players after a local tournament.

"The suicide bomber cut through the crowd to approach the center of the gathering and blew himself up as the mayor was presenting awards to the players," Ali Nashmi, an 18-year-old eyewitness, told AFP.

Meanwhile, Daesh has been losing territory steadily in Iraq for almost a year.

In the most recent operations, Iraqi forces have been gaining ground in the western province of Anbar and have just begun their re-conquest of the province of Nineveh.

Observers warned that, as their self-proclaimed "caliphate" shrinks towards extinction, Daesh terrorists are likely to revert to their old guerrilla tactics and ramp up suicide attacks on civilian targets.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team