UPDATED: eastern Baghdad blast carried out by suicide bomber

(IraqiNews.com) A car bomb blast that killed and wounded several civilians in eastern Baghdad on Sunday was carried out by a suicide bomber, police said.

The explosion, which hit a marketplace in Jamila, at the eastern, mainly Shia city of al-Sadr, occurred when a policeman shot at a suspected booby-trapped vehicle driven by a suicider, Saad Maan, spokesperson of the Interior Ministry’s Baghdad Operations, said in a statement.

While Maan put casualties from the attack at 6 deaths and 10 injuries, Reuters reported 12 deaths and 50 injuries.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack yet, but Islamic State militants have claimed several bombings over the past weeks that left dozens dead.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said recently that violence in Iraq had left 19000 casualties in 2016, but said the count excludes deaths in Anbar during three months of that year.

Observers believe Islamic State have begun to escalate attacks outside the city of Mosul, where the group has been losing ground and personnel since October, so as to relieve pressure on that front by government forces, and to divert attention from losses.