Carnage in Baghdad: Dozens dead in market blasts

Baghdad bomb blast.

The estimated death toll from a pair of suicide bomb blasts that tore through a market in central Baghdad has been increased to at least 28, with another at least 54 wounded, according to police and medical officials.

The attacks took place early on Saturday morning, local time, in al-Sinaq, a busy market selling car accessories, food, clothes, agricultural seeds and machinery.

Details were sketchy in the immediate aftermath. Police at first said a pair of back-to-back roadside bombs exploded.

Later a police official said a roadside bomb exploded first, then a suicide bomber detonated his device amid the crowd that had gathered.

Finally police concluded that the carnage was the work of a pair of suicide bombers.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release the information.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts, but Islamic State (Isis) has launched near-daily attacks in the capital in recent months.

Isis has lost much of the northern and western territory it seized in 2014 and is now resisting an Iraqi offensive on the northern city of Mosul, the ultra-hardline group's last major stronghold in the country.

- AP