ISIS Truck Bombing Kills 60 South of Baghdad

ISIS has claimed responsibility for a major fuel tanker truck bombing outside of a police checkpoint near the city of Hillah, just south of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, killing at least 60 people and wounding over 70 others.

ISIS claimed credit for the attack on social media, insisting that it proved to the Shi’ites that “the worst is yet to come.” This is the latest in a growing series of major ISIS bombings in and around Baghdad in recent weeks.

This attack, along the road between Baghdad and the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf, is likely to add to concerns among Iraqi commanders that the focus on an offensive against the city of Mosul has them spread too thin and unable to defend their territory from ISIS strikes.

ISIS has been using vehicle bombs to inflict massive casualties on targets for years, but seems to be doing so even more frequently in recent weeks, reflecting their ability to get such vehicles into areas where they could do enormous damage.