The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Sunday for a late-night car bomb attack in the heart of Baghdad that killed at least 19 people, saying it was targeting a Shi'ite militia.
The extremist group, however, did not shed any light on accusations by Yazidi lawmakers that it had executed at least 25 prisoners from the minority community in the northern city of Tal Afar.
The two car bombs in Baghdad went off about 10 minutes apart late Saturday in the Karrada district, known for its restaurants, cafes and ice cream parlors. Police said the dead and wounded were mainly shoppers and people commemorating the birth of Imam Ali, a key figure in Shi'ite Islam. Two traffic policemen were among those killed.
Similar revenge attacks
The online claim is similar to others the group has issued this past week about bombings in Baghdad, which they describe as revenge for the fighting in nearby Anbar province.
Iraqi forces are engaged in a see-saw battle in Anbar against Islamic State militants, who control some 65 percent of the province. The fighting has caused 114,000 residents of the provincial capital, Ramadi, to flee to Baghdad.
At the same time, there has been a major spike in car bombs in Baghdad over the past week, leading some Iraqi officials to claim that militants have infiltrated the capital by hiding among the displaced.
In a sign of the deteriorating security situation in the capital, Iraqi authorities discovered five bodies of men dumped in different areas, two police officers said. The men, believed to be in their 30s, suffered gunshots to the head and chest and had their hands and legs tied, they added. No identification was found with the victims.
The appearance of dead bodies in Baghdad reminds Iraqis of the sectarian tit-for-tat killings that the roiled the country in 2006 and 2007, when armed Sunni and Shi'ite militias carried out assassinations.
Medical officials confirmed the causalities. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.
Also Sunday, a bomb went off in an outdoor market in the town of Madain south of Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding eight others, another police officer said.
Reports of prisoner deaths
Yazidi lawmakers are meanwhile looking into reports of the killing of prisoners.
The Yazidis are a tiny religious community that was directly in the path of the Islamic State group when it swept through northern Iraq last year. Hundreds are believed to have been taken captive and the women sold to fighters as slaves.
The alleged killings took place at an Islamic State prison camp near the town of Tal Afar, some 150 kilometers (90 miles) east of the Syrian border, legislator Mahma Khalil said. He said he believes some 1,400 other Yazidis are still held in the camp.
Also Sunday, the U.S. and its allies staged 19 strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria in a 24-hour period ending Saturday, the Combined Joint Task Force said in a corrected statement Sunday.
Airstrikes targets three sites in Syria and 16 in Iraq, the military statement said.