Image emerges of baby-faced bomber who killed 32 at football match

The village of Al-Asriya, south of Baghdad, prepared Saturday to bury its sons, killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up after a football tournament. The attacker, who himself looks like a teenager on a photo distributed by the Islamic State group that claimed the attack, cut through the crowd when trophies were being presented. “There are 32 dead and also 84 wounded, 12 of whom are in critical condition,” an official in Babil province health directorate told AFP. Seventeen of those killed are boys aged between 10 and 16.

The suicide bomber cut through the crowd to approach the centre of the gathering and blew himself up as the mayor was presenting awards to the players.

Ali Nashmi, an 18-year-old eyewitness

The bomber detonated his suicide vest late afternoon on Friday as local officials were handing trophies to the players after a local tournament. A video posted on social media shows a local official speaking in front of a table covered with trophies and calling out the name of a player before a huge blast. IS has been losing territory steadily in Iraq for almost a year. In the most recent operations, Iraqi forces have been gaining ground in the western province of Anbar and have just begun their reconquest of the province of Nineveh.