World Bulletin / News Desk

A bombing targeting Shiites in Baghdad killed at least five people and wounded 21 others on Sunday, Iraqi officials said, an attack claimed by the ISIL.

ISIL, which frequently targets Shiite Muslims, whom it considers heretics, issued a statement claiming the attack and said it was carried out by a suicide bomber -- an account confirmed by two interior ministry officials.

But a medical official and people at the scene of the attack said it was a roadside bomb, not a suicide bomber -- a repeat of differing accounts of another bombing in the same area at the end of last month.

Unusually, there were also two different versions of the ISIL claim posted online Sunday: one which gave the correct location and another saying it had taken place in Shaab, an area across the city.

Iraqi forces are preparing for a push in northern Iraq on Mosul, the last ISIL-held city in the country, after regaining much of the Iraqi territory the extremists seized in June 2014.

But ISIL has maintained the ability to carry out attacks in government-controlled areas even as it loses ground.