The Iraqi govenrment last month claimed victory against the hardline Sunni militants in the western city of Ramadi and have slowly pushed them back in other areas.
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People gather near a crater caused by a vehicle bomb attack in a commercial area of New Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016.
The officials estimated that 50-75 people were trapped in the mall.
Police officials say two assailants detonated explosive belts after security forces stormed the building, while two other attackers were shot dead by police. The sectarian nature of the city made the fight even more hard, as the government decided not to use Shia peshmerga forces that had helped it recapture Tikrit for fear of increasing sectarian tensions.
In a separate attack, a auto bomb in a market in south-east Baghdad killed five and wounded 12.
But Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir al-Shammari, head of the Iraqi military’s Baghdad Operations Command, denied that the militants took captives.
The blast in the Jdaidat al-Shatt area, south of Diyala capital Baquba, also killed four policemen, including a first lieutenant, and wounded nine other police, the officers said.
In Muqdadiyah, about 90 kilometers north of the capital, a double suicide bombing killed at least 23 people.
The ministry source had said earlier that the attackers entered the shopping centre with a number of civilians as hostages.
ISIS appears to have claimed responsibility for the mall attack, according to a statement published by the terror group online, said Laith Alkhouri, with Flashpoint Intelligence, a global security firm and NBC News consultant.
Security sources said an improvised explosive device was detonated at a tea shop in the town of Muqdadiya, which is some 80km (50 miles) from the capital.
A hospital official confirmed the death toll and said 14 people were also reported to have been wounded in the attack.
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The attack comes two weeks after the Islamic State was driven out of the western city of Ramadi by Iraqi government troops. Subsequent efforts to defeat ISIL, which have sometimes relied on fighting by Shia militia groups, have in turn antagonized Sunnis, who form Iraq’s largest minority group with more than one-third of the total population.
