Around 100 Killed in ISIS Car Bomb South of Baghdad

A suicide truck bomb killed around 100 people, most of them Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims, at a petrol station in the city of Hilla 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Baghdad on Thursday, police and medical sources said. ISIS, which considers all Shi'ites to be apostates, claimed responsibility for the attack in
an online statement.
The pilgrims were en route back to Iran from the Iraqi Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, where they had commemorated Arbaeen, the 40th day of mourning for the killing of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, in the 7th century AD, the medical sources said.
The gas station has a restaurant in its premises that is popular with travelers. Five pilgrim buses were torched by the force of the blast from the explosives-laden truck, a police official said.
ISIS has intensified attacks over the past month in areas out of its control in efforts to weaken a U.S.-backed military offensive launched on October 17 to retake Mosul, the last major city under ISIS' control in Iraq.