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YEREVAN, MAY 11, ARMENPRESS.A car bomb at a crowded Baghdad market has killed at least 64 people, officials say, in one of the worst recent attacks in the Iraqi capital on May 11, BBC reports.
At least 87 others were wounded in the blast in the Shia Muslim district of Sadr City during the morning rush hour.
So-calledIslamic State(IS) said it had carried out the attack.
The Sunni Muslim group, which controls swathes of northern and western Iraq, has frequently targeted Shia, whom it considers heretics.
Many of the victims included women and children, Iraqi police and medical sources said. Several of the injured were said to be in critical condition.
Pictures showed vehicles and the facades of several buildings heavily damaged.
In an online statement, IS said it had targeted Shia militiamen.
An eyewitness told the Associated Press news agency that the car bomb was a pickup truck loaded with fruit and vegetables.
Its driver parked the vehicle and quickly disappeared among the crowd, he said
"It was such a thunderous explosion that jolted the ground," Karim Salih, 45, told the news agency.
"The force of the explosion threw me for metres and I lost consciousness for a few minutes."
IS has frequently targeted commercial areas and government and security personnel, causing heavy casualties.
Iraqi forces, backed by US-led coalition air strikes and Shia-dominated paramilitary forces, have regained some territory seized by IS in 2014, but have been unable to prevent bomb attacks in the capital.
In February, Iraqi security forces beganbuilding a wall around Baghdadin an attempt to halt the group's attacks.
The UN says 1,885 civilians were killedby violence in Iraq in the first four months of this year.