ISIS members overseeing Baghdad suicide bombing handed death sentence ​

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi forces on Sunday said a death sentence has been handed to two Islamic State (ISIS) members who oversaw the fatal double suicide bombing that shook Baghdad last year.

The two members, who were arrested earlier, were handed a death sentence by the judge, state media quoted the investigative department of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) as saying.

The two ISIS members held “sensitive and important” positions in the militant group, the department added, noting that one was the assistant to the so-called leader of southern Iraq in ISIS, Abu Hassan al-Gharibawi, and the other was in charge of the group’s hostels.

At least 32 people were killed and 100 others were injured when two suicide bombers attacked Baghdad’s Tayaran square on January 21 last year.

The death sentence comes over a year after two ISIS members were killed, including Gharibawi, for being allegedly involved in the attack. 

ISIS seized control of swaths of land in Iraq in 2014. The group was declared territorially defeated in 2017 but has continued to carry out bombings, hit-and-run attacks, and kidnappings across several provinces.

Two ISIS suspects, plotting to carry out a suicide attack during the month of Ramadan, were arrested in Kirkuk last month. 

In its propaganda magazine on Thursday, ISIS claimed to have conducted six attacks in Iraq from March 24 to March 30, killing and injuring 10 people.