BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An explosion at the al-Saqr camp south of Baghdad on Monday evening was caused by shelling from outside the camp, which houses four headquarters of the Popular Mobilization Brigades, including the Badr Organization, Jund al-Imam and Sayyed al-Shuhada Brigades, Iraqi security sources said. The blast killed one person and wounded 30 others.
Other sources confirmed that the explosion inside the Falcon camp was caused by aerial bombardment carried out by an unknown aircraft. Security sources and eyewitnesses said that an unidentified aircraft carried out more than a strike on weapons stores inside the camp.
The same sources ruled out that the explosion was caused by a technical fault occurred inside the stores, which used to contain large quantities of missiles and bombs belonging to factions of the Popular Mobilization, and the volatility led to the casualties mentioned.
Parliamentary invitation
Following the explosion, the head of the Iraqi parliament's security and defense committee, Mohammad Reza Al-Haidar, demanded that weapons be confined to the state and that informal camps within residential areas be removed.
He stressed in a statement that the government has the responsibility to take measures to move these weapons stacked out of residential neighborhoods, not only in Baghdad, but in all provinces.
Al-Haider called on Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi to use the bombing to close all camps and withdraw weapons to safe camps.