A car bomb exploded in Baghdad for the third day running Thursday, killing at least 55 people in a southern neighborhood, an interior ministry official said.
The blast rocked the same Bayaa neighborhood where a car bomb had already killed four people on Tuesday, the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the press.
He said another 25 people were wounded in the explosion, which went off in a busy market area. Hospital officials confirmed the casualty toll.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack, which came amid a renewed wave of violence in the Iraqi capital.
At least 11 people were also killed in a suicide car bomb attack claimed by ISIS on Wednesday in a northern neighborhood of the Iraqi capital.
Baghdad was rocked by a wave of deadly suicide bombings during the first days of 2017 but relatively few explosions had been reported since then until this week.
