Twin Blasts Kill 12 at Baghdad Shopping Mall, ISIS Claims Attack
More than 40 people were wounded in the attack at Nakheel Mall across from the oil ministry.
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Twelve people were killed late on Friday in two suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State at a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.
More than 40 people were wounded in the attack at Nakheel Mall across from the oil ministry, the sources said. One bomb went off at the entrance to the mall, the other in the parking lot.
Unconfirmed amateur video published on Facebook showed what appeared to be four separate fires, including two cars engulfed in flames, under a highway overpass near the mall amid the wailing sirens of first responders.
Amaq news agency, which supports Islamic State, said in an online statement that two suicide bombers, one wearing a vest and the other in a car, had targeted “a gathering of Shi’ites” on Palestine Street.
The fight against Islamic State, which seized a third of Iraq’s territory in 2014, has exacerbated a long-running sectarian conflict in Iraq, mostly between the Shi’ite majority and the Sunni minority.
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