Car Bomb Kills 8 in Shiite Area of Baghdad: Officials

A car bombing in the Shiite-majority Sadr City area of north Baghdad killed eight people and wounded more than 20 today, Iraqi security and medical officials said.

The bomb exploded near a restaurant and a mosque where pilgrims were gathering ahead of a visit to a Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of the capital.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Sunni extremists, including the Islamic State jihadist group which led an offensive that overran large parts of Iraq last year, often target Shiite Muslims, whom they consider to be apostates.

Car and roadside bombings used to be a daily occurrence in Baghdad, but with militants tied down battling Iraqi security forces and allied paramilitary groups, such attacks have fallen off sharply.

The conflict against IS still results in hundreds of deaths every month in other parts of Iraq, and has displaced more than two million people.