Just moments ago, unidentified gunmen stormed a mall in a mainly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, killing 10 and taking some 75 hostages.
Although no one immediately took credit for the assault, the most likely culprit is of course ISIS, which is struggling to hold onto key territory in the country in the face of a resurgent Iraqi military and persistent attacks from Iran's Shiite militias.
Russian aircraft have conducted over 300 sorties and hit nearly 1,100 Daesh terrorist targets in Syria since the beginning of 2016, according to an announcement by the Russian General Staff on Monday. He added that terrorist groups operating in Syria continue to receive reinforcements via Turkey Sputnik reports: “With the help of the Russian aviation the Syrian Democratic Forces under the command of Ayman Flyat al-Ganim continue the advance on the Daesh capital — Raqqa. They have taken control over al-Salhiya, Rdzheman-Alaia, el-Qria and Hadriyat-Ayn-Isa,”Rudskoy said.
Last week, two attacks on Sunni mosques in Iraq suggested a violent sectarian backlash may be in the cards for the war-torn country on the heels of Saudi Arabi's move to execute prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
As we noted in "Iraq Says Mosque Bombings Were False Flag ISIS Attacks," the sectarian issue is particularly divisive in post-Ba’thist Iraq and thus it wouldn't exactly be a surprise if the country' Shiite majority lashed out at Sunnis following al-Nimr's rather untimely demise.
Hundreds of people joined a Shiite-led protest in Islamabad on Friday against Pakistan’s decision to join Saudi Arabia’s coalition against terrorism. The protesters presented a memorandum to a Foreign Office spokesman demanding that Pakistan drop out of the Saudi led alliance, which was announced in December. Pakistan confirmed they would join the Saudi-led military alliance to fight “terrorism” in the Islamic world on Thursday, following a meeting between Riyadh’s foreign minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.