A suicide car bomb in Iraq's eastern Diyala province killed at least 100 people on Friday evening, officials said.
The suicide attack occurred in a busy marketplace in the Shia town of Khan Bani Saad as people shopped on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr festival at the end of the month of Ramadan, according to BBC News.
"The explosion was big, it caused a lot of damage," said Raad Fares al-Mas, a member of parliament from Diyala province capital Baquba, according to Agence France Presse.
Several women and children were among the victims, officials said. "Some people were using vegetables boxes to collect body parts of kids' bodies," said Ahmed al-Tamimi, a local police officer on duty, Reuters reported.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on its forums. "Our brother Abu Ruqayya al-Ansari advanced with his car loaded with almost three tons of explosives in the middle of a gathering," the extremist group said.
The terror outfit also said that the targets were Shiite Muslims and that the attack was to avenge the killing of Sunni Muslims in the northern Iraqi town of Hawija, according to DW.
The Islamic State group, also refers as ISIS/ISIL and Daesh in Arabic, controls some parts of Diyala province, the Associated Press reported. The militants occupy vast swaths of area in northern and western Iraq, as well as spots in Syria.
The United Nations said earlier this week that almost 15,000 civilians have been killed and more than 30,000 have been wounded from the conflict in Iraq in a 16-month period ending on April 30.
