BAGHDAD, Feb 16 (Reuters) - A car packed with explosives blew up on Thursday in southern Baghdad, killing at least 18 people and wounding about 50, security and medical sources said.

The vehicle was parked in a crowded street full of garages and used car dealers, in Hayy al-Shurta, security sources said. The death toll could climb further as many of the wounded are in critical condition, a doctor said.

The bombing, the deadliest so far this year in Baghdad, is the second to hit car markets this week, after one on Wednesday.

Islamic State has stepped up bombings in Iraq in retaliation for a U.S.-backed campaign that dislodged the hardline Sunni group from most Iraqi cities it took over in 2014. The militants also control parts of neighbouring Syria.

A suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck on Wednesday in the Sadr City suburb of the capital, killing at least 15 and wounding 50. The explosion also targeted a street full of used car dealers. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by John Stonestreet and Dominic Evans)</s>A suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck packed with explosives in northern Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least nine people, according to Iraqi officials.

Thirty more were wounded in the powerful blast in the Habibiya area, near Sadr City, a Shia-majority neighbourhood in the Iraqi capital.

The explosion targeted a crowded street full of garages and used car dealers.

The attack came a day after a car bomb explosion in southern Baghdad killed at least four people.

The Iraqi capital was rocked by a wave of deadly suicide bombings during the first days of 2017 but relatively few explosions had been reported since.

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There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's blast, but nearly all suicide attacks are claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group.

On January 2, ISIL, which often targets crowded areas to maximise casualties, claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed 39 people in a busy market in Sadr City.

ISIL is defending Mosul, its last major stronghold in Iraq, against a massive, four-month-old operation by an alliance of forces.</s>BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck on Wednesday in Sadr City, a heavily populated poor Shi'ite suburb of Baghdad, killing at least 15 and wounding 50, security sources said.

The explosion, the deadliest in Baghdad so far this year, targeted a crowded street full of garages and used car dealers.

Islamic has stepped up bombings in Iraq last year, in retaliation to a U.S.-backed campaign that dislodged the hardline Sunni group from most Iraqi cities it took over in 2014. The militants also control parts of neighbouring Syria.</s>File photo: Security forces and civilians gather at the scene of a deadly car bomb in the Habibiya neighborhood of Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq. (Source: AP photo) File photo: Security forces and civilians gather at the scene of a deadly car bomb in the Habibiya neighborhood of Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq. (Source: AP photo)

A suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck on Wednesday in Sadr City, a heavily populated poor Shi’ite suburb of Baghdad, killing at least 15 and wounding 50, security sources said. The explosion, the deadliest in Baghdad so far this year, targeted a crowded street full of garages and used car dealers.

Islamic has stepped up bombings in Iraq last year, in retaliation to a U.S.-backed campaign that dislodged the hardline Sunni group from most Iraqi cities it took over in 2014. The militants also control parts of neighbouring Syria.</s>BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck on Wednesday in Sadr City, a heavily populated poor Shia suburb of Baghdad, killing at least 15 and wounding 50, security sources said.

The explosion, the deadliest in Baghdad so far this year, targeted a crowded street full of garages and used car dealers. Islamic has stepped up bombings in Iraq last year, in retaliation to a U.S.-backed campaign that dislodged the hardline group from most Iraqi cities it took over in 2014. The militants also control parts of neighbouring Syria.

Meanwhile, living conditions in west Mosul, where jihadists are hunkering down among 750,000 Iraqi civilians, are deteriorating fast and a source of great concern, the UN's top aid official said Wednesday.

"We are extremely concerned about the rapid deterioration of the conditions in west Mosul," United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Lise Grande told reporters.

"Families are in big trouble, half of the shops have been closed," she said while visiting Hasansham, a displacement camp between Mosul and Arbil, the nearby capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.

Iraqi federal forces have almost completely encircled Mosul, whose east side they retook from the Islamic State group last month.

Four months into a huge offensive to reconquer the jihadists' last major stronghold in Iraq, they are now poised to launch an assault on the city's west bank.

Slightly smaller than the east side but densely populated, the west bank is thought to shelter around three quarters of a million people who have been living in siege-like conditions for weeks.

A smaller than expected number of people fled their homes when elite Iraqi forces punched into east Mosul three months ago but Grande said the aid community was planning for larger displacement from the west.

According to the UN, nearly 200,000 people have been displaced since the October 17 start of the operation to retake Iraq's second largest city.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that 46,000 of them have since returned to their homes.

"We expect as many as 250,000 civilians may leave western Mosul," Grande said Wednesday during her visit to Hasansham camp.

She said there were currently 20 displacement camps and emergency sites around the city and added that the UN and its partners were "rushing to construct new sites south of Mosul."</s>BAGHDAD, Feb 16 (Reuters) - A car packed with explosives blew up on Thursday in the south of Baghdad, killing eight and wounding at least 40, security sources said.

The vehicle was parked in a street full of garages and used car dealers, in Hayy al-Shurtathey said.

A suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck on Wednesday in the Sadr City suburb of the capital, killing at least 15 and wounding 50. The explosion also targeted a street full of used car dealers.

Islamic State has stepped up bombings in Iraq in retaliation for a U.S.-backed campaign that dislodged the hardline Sunni group from most Iraqi cities it took over in 2014. The militants also control parts of neighboring Syria.
A suicide bomber detonates a pick-up truck full of explosives at a busy street in northern Baghdad, killing at least nine people.