At an Iraqi checkpoint south of Baghdad, a truck bomb killed at least 60 and over  70 were injured, medical and security officials said, and ISIS claimed responsibility for the blast.

After a deadliest ISIS attack on February 28th, which killed 78 people in Sadr city, a Shi'ite district of Baghdad, this is the second attack which took away several lives.

The attack was also claimed by the ultra-hardline Sunni group that controls vast swathes of territory in Iraq and in Syria.

The escalation in IS bombings suggests that Iraqi government forces are being stretched thin, after their recent gains against the group in the western and northern provinces.

Amaq news agency, a website that supports IS, claimed the responsibility for the bombing in Hilla, 117 kilometres south of Baghdad.

The statement on the Amaq website reads, “A martyr's operation with a truck bomb hit the Babylon Ruins checkpoint at the entrance of the city of Hilla, killing and wounding dozens.”

Hilla, the capital of Babylon province is a predominantly Shi'ite region with some Sunnis. “It's the largest bombing in the province to date. The checkpoint, the nearby police station were destroyed as well as some houses and dozens of cars,” Falah al-Radhi, the head of the provincial security committee said.

23 of the casualities, a provincial hospital official confirmed, were members of the police and other security forces that were manning the check point located at the northern entrance of the city.  

Brett McGurk, the US envoy to a coalition fighting IS yesterday, said that, ISIS  was losing the battle against forces arraigned against it from many sides in Iraq and Syria. He said the focus would turn to stabilizing cities seized back from them.

By Phani Ch