The IS said in an online statement online that four ISIL fighters set off a auto bomb and launched a suicide attack in the entrance of a mall where many Shiite Muslims gather.
Advertisement
According to Iraqi officials, at least 50 others were wounded in the attack that lasted over an hour.
Monday’s combined attacks made for one of the worst days of violence in months in areas that are not active front-lines.
IS claimed that a total of 90 people were killed or wounded but the group has exaggerated the number of casualties caused by its attacks in previous such statements.
More than two dozen people were killed in multiple terror attacks in Iraq on Monday – including one in which several Islamic State militants attacked Baghdad’s al-Jawhara shopping mall.
Two bombs later went off in the eastern town of Muqdadiya, killing at least 20 people and wounding another 50, security and medical sources said.
A security source in nearby Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, told the BBC that Shia militiamen had later gone on a rampage against Sunnis in Muqdadiya, summarily killing at least three men from the central al-Asiri district.
Masked militiamen in three SUVs stopped their vehicle in the village of Abu Saida, took the journalists out and executed them with Kalashnikov assault rifles, Suhail said.
In a separate development, Iraqi news outlet Sharqiya said that two of its journalists were shot dead on Tuesday in Diyala province. It was viewed as suggesting that the Islamic State group was seeking to strike back after facing recent losses.
Officials tried on Tuesday to head off further violence, condemning the mosque attacks as well as Monday’s bombings which Islamic State said had targeted Shi’ites. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-filled vest inside a casino in the town.
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.
Iraqi security forces last month recaptured the strategically important capital of Anbar Province, Ramadi, from IS.
Advertisement
The success in Ramada was all the more significant as it was the first city recaptured by the Iraqi army without the help of militias.
