BAGHDAD, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- A car bomb blast has ripped through a busy market area in eastern Baghdad on Monday, killing at least two people and injured five others, an Interior Ministry source said.
The blast took place before noon when a booby-trapped car detonated near the electricity office at Jamila wholesale market in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr city, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Many nearby shops and stalls were destroyed and several civilian cars were damaged by the blast, which caused a plume of grey smoke to rise above the scene, the source said.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State (IS) militant group, in most cases, is responsible for such attacks, targeting areas where crowds of people gather, including markets, cafes and mosques across Iraq.
The attack comes as the Iraqi forces are in final stages of recapturing the northern town of Tal Afar from IS.
Terrorist acts, violence and armed conflicts killed 239 civilians and wounded 2,737 others in July across Iraq, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said earlier in the month.
Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the United States that invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003, under the pretext of seeking to destroy weapons of mass destruction in the country.
The war led to the ouster and eventual execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but no such weapons have been found.
