Anger has mounted against Haider al-Abadi's government following Sunday's massive truck bombing in the capital that killed at least 186 people. And late yesterday, an attack at a Shiite shrine north of Baghdad killed 37 people.The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for both attacks.
Interior Minister Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban submitted his resignation on Tuesday but al-Abadi held off on accepting it, until today.
The prime minister described the attacks as the militants' response to Iraq's "great victory in Fallujah, which stunned the world," according to a statement released by his office.
But despite recent territorial losses in both Iraq and Syria, where the group has established its self-proclaimed caliphate, the attacks in Baghdad and on the Shiite shrine demonstrate its continued ability to launch offensive attacks in Iraqi government-held territory and beyond. In Iraq, IS still holds pockets of territory in the country's north and west, including the second-largest city of Mosul.
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A successor to al-Ghabban was not immediately named. The IS attack Sunday in Baghdad's central Karada neighborhood, where the suicide bomber detonated his explosives' truck outside a shopping mall in a street crammed with people preparing for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, killing scores, was the deadliest in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. The death toll has been rising as more human remains continue to be recovered from the rubble.
The suicide bomber first targeted police guarding the shrine's entrance. That allowed allowing a second bomber to push into the courtyard with nine gunmen who targeted security forces and civilians gathered inside to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
A third bomber was killed before he detonated his explosives, police said.
In all, 37 people were killed and 62 wounded, according to police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.