{"id":505,"date":"2017-03-23T21:22:39","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T21:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/?p=505"},"modified":"2017-03-23T21:22:39","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T21:22:39","slug":"baghdad-car-bomb-kills-at-least-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/2017\/03\/23\/baghdad-car-bomb-kills-at-least-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Baghdad car bomb kills at least 21"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Al Jazeera:<\/strong>\u00a0A car bomb exploded in the Iraqi capital on Monday, killing at least 21 people and wounding 43 others in a mainly Shia district in southwestern Baghdad.<\/p>\n<p>The attack &#8211; as Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC &#8211; targeted a busy commercial district of the Hay al-Amel suburb, according to police and hospital officials.<\/p>\n<p>There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, which bore all the hallmarks of a suicide attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.<\/p>\n<p>The group is under assault in both Iraq &#8211; in the country&#8217;s second city of Mosul, which ISIL seized in June 2014 &#8211; and in neighboring Syria.<\/p>\n<p>ISIL took vast swaths of Iraqi territory north a<!--more-->nd west of the capital in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Iraqi government forces backed by the US-led international coalition have since retaken many cities, including Tikrit and Fallujah.<\/p>\n<p>But as ISIL has lost ground in Iraq, it has also retained the ability to stage regular attacks there.<\/p>\n<p>Iraqi troops are now closing in on Mosul&#8217;s Old City, where some of the fiercest fighting is expected to unfold.<\/p>\n<p>The militarised federal police say they are some 500 metres from al-Nuri mosque, where ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made a rare public appearance in July 2014, announcing a self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n<p>ISIL fighters on Monday captured an Iraqi police colonel and eight other officers in western Mosul after they ran out of ammunition during fierce early morning clashes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Al Jazeera:\u00a0A car bomb exploded in the Iraqi capital on Monday, killing at least 21 people and wounding 43 others in a mainly Shia district in southwestern Baghdad. The attack &#8211; as Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC &#8211; targeted a busy commercial district of the Hay al-Amel suburb, according to police and hospital&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/2017\/03\/23\/baghdad-car-bomb-kills-at-least-21\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}