AFP is now reporting that the Baghdad mall attack is over.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has said that it has delivered food, medical items and blankets to Madaya in rural Damascus and the Shi'ite villages of Foua and Kefraya near Idlib city.
"The operation has started. It is likely to last a few days. This is a very positive development. But it must not be just a one-off distribution. To relieve the suffering of these tens of thousands of people, there has to be regular access to these areas," said the head of the ICRC delegation in Syria, Marianne Gasser.
With the details of the attack on a shopping center in eastern Baghdad still very unclear, there are separate reports that at least 20 people have been killed and 50 wounded in two bomb blasts northeast of Baghdad.
Reuters are reporting on another explosion in Baghdad.
At least seven people were killed and 15 wounded when a suicide bomber driving a car attacked a commercial street in the southeastern Sunni suburb of Nahrawan, police and medical sources said.
AFP's report on the Baghdad mall attack is different to the Wall Street Journal's.
While the WSJ said that no hostages were taken in the attack on a mall in the east of the city, AFP are quoting a senior police officer as saying that "the hostages have been freed."
At least 12 people were killed in the attack, AFP say.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack on a mall in eastern Baghdad.
The IS group made its claim of responsibility for the east Baghdad mall attack in an online statement.
Reuters has more on the claim of responsibility by IS for today's attack on a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad that killed at least 18 people.
IS said that four of its militants targeted a gathering of "rejectionist heathens," a term used by IS to slur Shi'ite Muslims.
The claim of responsibility matches reports that says four militants were involved in the attack on the mall in the New Baghdad neighborhood.
That concludes our live-blogging of the crisis surrounding Islamic State for Monday, January 11, 2016. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
The UN's humanitarian chief, Stephen O'Brien, told reporters yesterday that reports of people starving to death in Madaya were "wholly credible."
But Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari has complained that much of what is being said about Madaya is fabricated for political reasons.
Syria's state news agency SANA is running Ja'afari's comments this morning, focussing on his accusations that humanitarian aid sent to areas under rebel control is being stolen by "terrorists" -- in other words, rebels -- who are also using civilians in those areas as "human shields."
Ja'afari said that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were working to undermine a political solution to the crisis in Syria.
Russia's TASS news agency picked up on Ja'afari's comments this morning -- notably, TASS has run a story in English, designed to reach international readers.
TASS focusses on Ja'afari's accusations that the reports of starvation in Madaya are "set to undermine the peace talks in Geneva on January 25" and are attempts to "demonize" the Assad government.
"The fact raises eyebrows that every time when a step forward is made towards political settlement in Syria, information about certain incidents is fabricated to belie the Syrian government and to negatively affect the political process," Ja'afari told reporters.
The Syrian diplomat said the gunmen loot some aid and then sell the goods to the citizens at an inflated price. "They store the humanitarian aid at their warehouses and use it as a tool of political struggle," he said.