BAGHDAD
At least 61 people have been killed and 19 wounded Thursday in a suicide attack on a convoy carrying prisoners in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
Two suicide bombers detonated themselves right after a road-side bomb exploded in front of the patrol wagon as it set off from Al-Hut Jail in northern At-Taji district, security sources told The Anadolu Agency.
The casualties included 52 inmates along with nine security personnel from Al-Hut Jail.
The injured were rushed to nearby hospitals, and several police forces were dispatched to the blast scene.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the suicide assault.
Authority in the country has diminished since a coalition of armed opposition groups spearheaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL, took control of large swathes of the country's predominantly Sunni provinces early June.
With the capital, Baghdad, vulnerable to bomb attacks and explosions, the Iraqi army is engaged in a large-scale military operation in the cities of Fallujah, al Karmah and Ramadi in Anbar province, which remains under control of ISIL-led armed insurgents.
More than a million people in the region have fled their homes, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian agency.
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