Attacks in Baghdad and the main northern city of Mosul on Thursday killed five people as an Al-Qaeda front group claimed an assault on a mall and adjoining police complex.

Attacks in Baghdad and the main northern city of Mosul on Thursday killed five people as an Al-Qaeda front group claimed an assault on a mall and adjoining police complex.

Shootings and bombings in the capital and Mosul, in north Iraq, killed five people, security and medical officials said, while security forces found the bodies of two anti-Al-Qaeda militiamen.

The bloodshed came as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed it was behind a massive coordinated attack on a shopping mall and adjoining police intelligence office in the northern tinderbox city of Kirkuk.

Overall, the attack -- which involved a car bomb, a firefight and several would-be suicide bombers -- killed 11 people and wounded 79, according to officials. Five militants were also killed.

The violence was the latest in a protracted surge in bloodshed that has killed more than 6,200 people already this year.