BAGHDAD (Web Desk) – Gunmen haven take hostages and at least 18 people are dead following the explosions at a shopping centre in Baghdad.
About 20 gunmen, who may have been wearing explosive vests, entered the Jawaher mall in the predominantly Shi’ite Jadida district of the Iraqi capital following the detonation of a car bomb outside and took as many as 75 hostages, NBC News reported.
At least 18 people were killed and 27 others were wounded in the suicide and car bomb blast, police and medical sources said.
State television said security forces were surrounding the site of a ‘terrorist attack’, a phrase used by an interior ministry spokesman.
According to reports Islamic State said it was responsible for attacks on a shopping complex in eastern Baghdad on Monday.
