ISIS Suicide Blasts Claim More Iraqi Lives After Deadliest Day In Baghdad This Year

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two suicide bombings claimed by Islamic State in a town near Baghdad killed two policemen and wounded eight others on Thursday, police and medics said, a day after Islamic State bombs left at least 80 people dead in the Iraqi capital.

The death toll made Wednesday's three suicide bombings at a busy market and two checkpoints the bloodiest day in Baghdad so far this year.

Police sources said Thursday's bombers had approached a police station in Abu Ghraib from two directions before detonating their explosives.

Baghdad Operations Command, one of the security apparatuses charged with protecting the capital, said in a statement that a third assailant was killed on approach of the police station.

Amaq news agency, which supports Islamic State, said two militants had clashed with police at al-Zeidan station before detonating their explosives-filled vests.

Baghdad became the target of daily bombings a decade ago following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein. Violence against security forces and Shi'ite Muslim civilians is frequent, even as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have rolled Islamic State back from swathes of the country's west and north seized in 2014.

A recent surge in bombings has added to criticism of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who already faces a political crisis over his attempts to overhaul his cabinet as part of an anti-corruption bid.

Lawmakers have failed to convene a session since protesters loyal to a powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a vocal advocate of dismantling Iraq's quota-based governing system, breached the heavily-fortified Green Zone district two weeks ago and took over the parliament complex for several hours.

(Reporting by Kareem Raheem and Omar Fahmy in Cairo; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)