ISIL claims responsibility for attack on Baghdad mall

It has slowly pushed them back in other places.

But Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir al-Shammari, head of the Iraqi military’s Baghdad Operations Command, denied that the militants took captives. An estimated 50- 75 people were inside the mall when the incident began.

Iraqi security forces opened fire on the insurgents, who initially tried to take a money exchange office in Baghdad Al-Jadeedah before entering the Al Jawhara shopping mall, a major in the Baghdad Police Department and a master sergeant in the Iraqi Federal Police Division said.

“When the security forces got too close, [the attackers] killed three hostages…” Several other sources gave a similar account.

Facing an escalation in Islamic State violence…

“I saw the body of small child strewn on the ground over there, human flesh”.

A further 20 people were killed and at least 50 injured when two bombs went off in the eastern town of Muqdadiya, security and medical sources said.

The group has carried out dozens of suicide vehicle bomb attacks but Monday’s hostage-taking would be the first of its kind since IS seized control of large parts of Iraq in 2014.

It said the attack was carried out by “four soldiers of the caliphate” and targeted Shiites.

One police official suggested there may have been more than one auto bomb blast in the early stages of the attack. It was viewed as suggesting that the Islamic State group was seeking to strike back after facing recent losses. A gun battle lasted for roughly two hours, officials said.

At the height of Iraq’s civil war almost a decade ago, such mosque attacks often unleashed revenge killings and counter attacks across the country.

The Islamic State group is warning of “worse” attacks to come, after an attack on a mall in Baghdad today that left 18 people dead.

People collect their belongings from a heavily damaged building in the aftermath of a auto bomb explosion in commercial area of New Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. The conflicting accounts could not immediately be reconciled. Police regained control of the mall and officials said all attackers had been killed. In a social media post, the group said four militants had been involved and claimed that they had killed or wounded almost 90 people, according to a translation distributed by SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist communications.

Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone, home to a number of foreign embassies and most of the country’s political elite, was shut down soon after.

In recent months, Iraqi and Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes have forced IS out of Sinjar in the north and the provincial capital of Ramadi west of Baghdad.

 Iraqi security forces last month recaptured the strategically important capital of Anbar Province, Ramadi, from IS.