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             Police: Gunmen Enter Baghdad Mall After Blast Kills 7

   by VOA News

   Unidentified attackers charged into a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad
   Monday, spraying gunfire in a crowded area after a car bomb exploded
   outside and killed at least seven people, police said.

   Security sources said it was not clear if the assailants, who may have
   been wearing suicide vests, had killed anyone or taken hostages at the
   Jawaher mall in the predominately Shi'ite Muslim district of Baghdad
   Jadida.

   Seven people were killed and at least 14 others wounded in the car bomb
   blast, police and medical sources said.

   The gunmen were still holed up in the shopping center, a police colonel
   said, adding that it was feared the attackers were wearing suicide
   belts.

   He described the mall as a building of four or five floors in a busy
   commercial area of Baghdad al-Jadida, a populous Shi'ite-majority area
   on the eastern edge of the Iraqi capital.

   A large plume of black smoke could be seen billowing into the sky above
   the area where the mall is located.

   There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but
   Islamic State militants controlling large swathes of Iraq's north and
   west regularly target Shi'ite districts and security forces in the
   capital and elsewhere.

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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/police-say-gunmen-enter-baghdad-mall-
   after-blast-and-kills-seven/3140248.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/police-say-gunmen-enter-baghdad-mall-after-blast-and-kills-seven/3140248.html