Baghdad mall stormed by gunmen, at least 10 killed

Damaged mannequins are pictured at the site of an attack in eastern Baghdad on January 11, 2016. Gunmen stormed into a Baghdad mall on Monday after s… The city has been plagued by suicide and auto bomb attacks for years.

The jihadist group Islamic State (IS), which frequently targets Iraqi Shia, said it was behind the cafe blasts.

He described the mall as a building of four or five floors in a busy commercial area of Baghdad al-Jadida, a populous Shiite-majority area on the eastern edge of the Iraqi capital.

But the extremist group has proved resilient after previous defeats, often seizing territory on other frontiers of its amoeba-like caliphate. Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, have made recent gains against the militant group, including retaking control of Ramadi west of Baghdad.

A hospital official confirmed the death toll and said at least three attackers either killed themselves or were killed by the security forces.

A blast in a Baghdad mall and a vehicle bomb left 18 dead, while attacks in the town of Muqdadiya killed at least 23 more.

The attack also underscored what many fear will happen as the Islamic State loses territory in places like Ramadi: that the group will return to its days as a guerrilla force trying to instill terror by carrying out attacks en masse.

Earlier, an Interior Ministry source had said that the attackers entered the shopping center and held a number of civilians as hostages, leaving at least seven people were killed, whilst 20 others were injured during the attack.

“Organized gangs were behind the attack seeking to inflame sectarian tensions”, he said.

Iraq is one of the most unsafe countries in the world for journalists, especially those from the country, who are far more exposed to attacks than their foreign colleagues.

The journalists were killed while returning to Baquba from a reporting trip with Staff Lieutenant General Mizher al-Azzawi, the head of security command responsible for the province, the channel said.

“These are not isolated incidents”, he said.

The European Union said it supported Baghdad, stressing that “these tragic events underline the fragility of the security situation” in Iraq.