 Many of the victims of attack in Hilla, which has been claimed by Islamic State, were Iranian nationals, security official says 
 
 Dozens of people, many of them Iranian Shia pilgrims, have been killed by a suicide bombing claimed by Islamic State near the Iraqi city of Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad, in the deadliest single attack on Iranian nationals by the Sunni jihadi group.  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide truck bomb killed about 100 people, most of them Iranian Shi’ite pilgrims, at a petrol station in the city of Hilla 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad on Thursday, police and medical sources said. The attack appears to have targeted a bus with Iranian pilgrims heading home after a major Shiite religious observance in the holy city of Karbala. Reports of the death toll varied, with officials quoted by Reuters saying as many as 100 people had died and others quoted by Associated Press putting the toll at at least 56 people, including 20 Iranians. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Thursday night as saying that 80 people were killed, including 40 Iranians. Islamic State, the ultra hard-line Sunni militant group that considers all Shi’ites to be apostates, claimed responsibility the attack in an online statement. Conflicting death tolls are common in the aftermath of large attacks. IS claimed the attack in a brief statement on its Aamaq media arm, saying it was a suicide truck bomb. In July, a bomb claimed by Isis killed about 300 people, one of the worst atrocities to have hit the country since 2003. About 3 million Iranians are believed to have travelled to Iraq this week for the annual Shia commemoration of arbaeen, an important day in the Shia Muslim calendar.. 
 
 
 
 Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the attack, saying that it would not alter Iran’s backing of the Iraqi government against Isis. “This heinous and barbarous crime will not change the determination of Iraqi government and people and will not alter the support of the Islamic Republic of Iran for and its solidarity with the oppressed people of Iraq and their fight against terrorism,” said Bahram Ghassemi, Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. The gas station bombing underlined the continuing ability of IS to stage high-profile terror attacks even as a massive Iraqi military operation is underway to dislodge its fighters from its last major urban stronghold in Iraq, the northern city of Mosul.
– ISIS carried out its deadliest attack in Iraq in months Thursday night, killing at least 73 people, including dozens of Iranian pilgrims, in an attack on a gas station on a highway south of Baghdad. At least 65 other people were wounded in the attack, which targeted Shiite pilgrims who had visited the holy city of Karbala, the AP reports. The Guardian and Reuters—which puts the death toll at 100—report that a truck laden with 500 liters of ammonium nitrate exploded at the gas station in the city of Hilla, setting five pilgrim buses alight. In a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, ISIS, which considers all Shiites to be heretics, boasted of killing or wounding 200, including Iranians. The AP notes that ISIS has stepped up attacks around Iraq in an effort to weaken the offensive to retake Mosul. The previous day, at least 31 people were killed in roughly a dozen bombings in Baghdad. The Guardian reports that around 3 million Iranians are in Iraq this week to mark a holy day in the Shiite calendar, and the Thursday night attack was seen as retaliation for Tehran's anti-ISIS stance. Iran's foreign ministry issued a statement denouncing the "heinous and barbarous crime," believed to be ISIS' deadliest attack on Iranian nationals, and vowing that Tehran will continue to support Iraq in its "relentless fight against terrorism." (A US service member assisting anti-ISIS forces in Syria was killed on Thursday.)