DOZENS of Iraqi day labourers were slaughtered by an Isis suicide bomber posing as an employer in Baghdad’s Sadr City yesterday.

The attack at a fruit and vegetable market coincided with a state visit by French President Francois Hollande.

During a press conference with Mr Hollande, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that the bomber, driving a pick-up truck, had pretended to be offering work.

Once the workers gathered round, he detonated the vehicle, killing 36 and injuring 52.

Isis claimed the attack in a statement circulated on a militant website often used by the Wahhabi death cult.

Sadr City is a majority Shi’ite district from where many of the popular mobilisation units (PMU) militia fighting Isis have been recruited.

In the attack’s aftermath militiamen removed bodies as a minibus full of dead victims burned.

It was the third Isis attack on Baghdad in as many days, following a grim pattern of revenge attacks for military advances.
A pair of attacks on another marketplace on Saturday killed 28 people.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry condemned that “criminal act,” saying its aim was to distract from defeats suffered by terrorists at the hands of the Iraqi Army and PMU in the 10-week battle to wrest the northern city of Mosul from Isis.

Iraqi and US military officers have said in recent days the offensive may last another three months.

Mr Hollande met Mr Abadi and President Fuad Masum and was expected to travel to the self-governing northern Kurdish region to meet French troops and local officials.