'IS bomber' kills 31 in Iraq market

A woman suicide bomber killed at least 31 people and wounded 35 in a crowded market in the town of Musayab, 80 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, on Friday, security sources said.

Islamic State claimed the attack, as well as one at the main bus station in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, just west of Musayab, which killed three people and wounded 15.

A security officer said the bomber in Musayab was a woman and had hidden the bomb under her full-body veil.

Islamic State's statements identified both bombers as men.

Meanwhile, a US-backed alliance broke into the western part of the Islamic State group's stronghold Raqa yesterday, the force and a monitor said, opening up a second front inside the Syrian city.

Yesterday, they pierced into Raqa from the west, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

"The SDF captured the western half of the Al-Sabahiya neighbourhood and are reinforcing their positions there," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.