Baghdad bombings kill 19, as US renews strikes against IS

Two bombings and shelling in Shiite-majority areas of north Baghdad killed at least 19 people on Thursday, security and medical officials said.

In the Shiite shrine district of Kadhimiyah, a suicide bombing and shelling killed at least 14 people, while a car bomb in Tobchi killed five more, the officials said.

The attacks wounded more than 40 people.

There was no immediate claim for the attacks, but Sunni militant groups, including the Islamic State (IS), frequently target members of Iraq's Shiite majority, whom they consider heretics.

The IS led a led a sweeping offensive across Iraq in June, overrunning large areas north and west of Baghdad, while Iraqi army forces fled without putting up a fight. Since then the group have been subject to a counter-offensive by the Iraqi army and Kurdish Pershmerga forces, attacks which have been supplemented by the advent of US-led air strikes and the joining of Sunni tribesmen in the fight.

On Thursday the US for the first time launched attacks against the IS that were not directly supporting Iraqi or Kurdish forces. The strike on the training camp in northern Iraq killed fighters, as well as destroying buildings and vehicles, US Central Command said. 

A US military officer told AFP that the strike, southeast of Iraq's IS-controlled second city Mosul, was the first of its kind since the US air campaign began on August 8.

About 40 jihadist fighters were on the ground at the time of the strike, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A second air raid damaged an IS ammunition depot southeast of Baghdad, Central Command said.

The strikes against IS targets came as France announced it will join the air war.

President Francois Hollande said their involvement would be limited to Iraq, whereas in Washington the US is expected to approve plans to train and arm Syrian rebels in the fight against the IS.

The US has now carried out 176 air strikes against IS in Iraq, as Hollande announced Thursday France will join the campaign "within a short timeframe."

But he underlined there would be no French strikes against IS targets in Syria such as those US President Barack Obama authorised last week.

"I decided to respond to the request of the Iraqi authorities to offer aerial support," Hollande told reporters.

"As soon as we have identified targets, we will act... within a short timeframe," he said.

"We will not go further than that. There will be no ground troops and we will only intervene in Iraq."

France began reconnaissance flights over Iraq on Monday from a base in the UAE.

Britain too has conducted surveillance flights but has so far held back from launching strikes.

US Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the move by France, saying they are "one of the countries that we've been counting in on this."

The US Senate was expected to back a plan later on Thursday to train and equip “moderate” rebels in Syria, a key part of Obama's strategy against IS.

Who exactly will benefit from the programme is unclear, as the rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad lack a clear command structure and range from secular nationalists to Al-Qaeda-backed groups.

Global threat?

The US estimates that IS has 20,000 to 31,000 fighters, including many foreigners, and there are concerns that returning militants could carry out attacks in Western countries.

Australia said it had detained 15 people in connection with a plot to behead random civilians, in the country's largest ever counter-terrorism raids.

But analysts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) warned against overestimating the IS threat, saying Al-Qaeda's global network was still the bigger danger worldwide.

"Despite its spectacular acts of violence, including against Westerners, (IS's) short- and medium-term objectives appear to be local and transnational rather than global," the London-based think-tank said.

Analyst Emile Hokayem told a press conference: "We shouldn't exaggerate its potency. It is a very serious security threat to the region -- as a global threat it's still limited."