Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has accepted the resignation of the country's interior minister, hours after he sacked the chief of security operations in Baghdad following a string of attacks by the Islamic State group that had left hundreds dead.
Al-Abadi said that he has accepted the resignation of Interior Minister Mohammed al-Ghabban during a security meeting.
Al-Ghabban had submitted his resignation on Tuesday, according to Iraqi media reports.
Earlier on Friday, al-Abadi sacked Baghdad Operations commander Abdul Amir al-Shammari and other security and intelligence officials in the city, state television al-Iraqiya reported.
The announcement came hours after the death toll from a suicide attack claimed by IS on a Shi'ite shrine in northern Iraq rose to 50 people, medical sources and witnesses said on Friday.
The attack late on Thursday targeted the shrine of Imam al-Sayed Mohammed bin Ali in the town of Balad, around 80 kilometres north of the capital Baghdad.
The attack was carried out by three bombers who posed as members of the pro-government Shi'ite militia, the Popular Mobilisation, and refused to show their ID cards as they entered the shrine, a senior police officer said.
Authorities in the mostly Sunni northern province of Salah al-Din declared a curfew in Balad and two other towns.
The province's local council declared mourning for three days, starting on Friday.
In an attempt to defuse sectarian tensions, the governor of Salah al-Din, Ahmed al-Jabouri, called on locals to stand united against the violence.
Influential Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, meanwhile, ordered a militia force to go to Balad to protect the shrine and its visitors.
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