By REUTERS
A car bomb exploded late Tuesday at a commercial street in the southwestern Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriya killing at least seven people and injuring 30 others, police said.The bombing also damaged several shops and some cars.The blast came at a time US-backed Iraqi forces were closing in on the Islamic State-held western half of Mosul and preparing to storm the airport and a nearby military base on its southern outskirts.On Sunday, Iraqi forces started a ground offensive to take western Mosul where Islamic State militants are essentially under siege along with an estimated 650,000 civilians.The insurgents were forced out of the east of the city last month after 100 days of fighting.Recapturing Mosul after more than two years of Islamic State rule would probably spell the end of the Iraqi side of the group's self-declared caliphate, which spans across much of the territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
IDF confirms it struck terrorists in Gaza City area
