Suicide attack kills dozens at football match in Iraq

A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest detonated himself at an informal soccer match in a stadium in Iskandiriyam a town 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad.

The attack has killed at least 24 people and wounded 80 more, a spokesman for Iraq's Ministry of Interior told reporters.

Eyewitnesses told local media that the suicide bomber blew up himself at the end of a match when the players waited for awards. Most of the causalities were young males.

The Islamic State (IS) group’s media wing, Amaq news, said IS took responsibility for the attack.

A video of the blast has circulated online that showed moments before the attack.

The blast took place in a mixed Sunni and Shia Muslim town during the end of a football match.

Iskandriya is a small city that used to be a part of what was called the "triangle of death," where thousands of Shia were slaughtered during the peak of the sectarian war in 2006-2007.

Iskandiriya and the towns in the "Triangle of Death" are under Iraqi government control but IS cells and other Sunni insurgents operate there, as Sunnis represent the majority in these towns.

The blast happened one day after Iraqi forces launched an offensive to retake the northern city of Mosul from IS.

Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, a spokesman for the joint operations command, told state TV that Iraqi army forces and allied militia fighters backed by airstrikes had already recaptured several villages.

"The first phase of the Fatah [Conquest] Operation has been launched at dawn to liberate Nineveh, raising the Iraqi flag in several villages," the statement said.

The army said that four villages had been captured between its base at Makhmour and the still IS-held town of Qayyarah.

Kurdish peshmerga fighters from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region have also been heavily involved in the campaign against IS in northern Iraq.

The peshmerga deputy commander for the sector, Araz Mirkhan, confirmed to the AFP news agency on Thursday that the offensive had started.

"Iraq forces in Makhmur have begun their advance towards Qayyarah to the south of Mosul."

The US-led coalition said it carried out three airstrikes in the Qayyarah area on Wednesday.

"Near Qayyarah, three strikes struck an ISIL [IS] communication facility and destroyed an ISIL-used bridge section and denied ISIL access to terrain," it said in a statement.

It also launched eight strikes in the broader Mosul region.

Suadad al-Salhy contributed to this story from Baghdad