For Baghdad residents, the attack was a fearsome reminder of the days when their city faced near-daily mass casualty attacks from auto bombs and suicide attackers.
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At least 23 people were killed and 51 wounded in those blasts. “The situation is under control”, General Maan said.
At least four police officers were reportedly among those killed.
In a statement posted online IS claimed it was behind the attack on the Baghdad shopping centre, as well as the later attack in the Diyala province.
It said the attack was carried out by “four soldiers of the caliphate” and targeted Shiites.
The use of Shia militias in recapturing Sunni majority locations has been problematic as it has stoked sectarian tensions – which the mainstream narrative believes contributed to the rise of the Islamic State in the first place.
“I saw the body of small child strewn on the ground over there, human flesh”. The IS claim also mentioned four attackers, including three who triggered suicide blasts.
Angry mobs then attacked several Sunni mosques in apparently retaliatory attacks, prompting security forces to impose a curfew in the area, Sunni lawmaker, Raad al-Dahlaki, told The Associated Press.
Iraq is also fighting a multi-front war with IS, which last month was driven from the city of Ramadi, about 80 miles west of Baghdad.
The Iraqi intelligence services announced on December they had detained 40 IS members as part of major swoop in the Baghdad area.
Late Monday, a vehicle bomb blew up at a market in southeastern Baghdad, killing at least five people. Security officials say fierce battles and relentless air strikes have depleted its manpower.
Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the two largest attacks, saying they were targeting Shi’ites.
Some 20 people were killed and 50 others wounded after a bomber detonated his explosives-filled vest inside a cafe in Muqdadiya, 80 km northeast of Baghdad, on Monday, security and medical sources said. Iraqi officials said seven men were involved in the bombings. The conflicting accounts could not immediately be reconciled.
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Meanwhile, a source from the interior ministry anonymously said that security sources regained control of the mall once they killed the two suicide bombers.
