AP

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi police say gunmen have killed at least 33 people, including 29 women, in a raid on two buildings in a housing complex in Baghdad.

Police officials say the gunmen showed up in four-wheel drive vehicles before storming the buildings in the Zayounah neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. They say at least 18 people were wounded.

Police have cordoned off the area.

An Interior Ministry official and hospital officials confirmed the casualty figures. The motive behind the killings was not immediately clear. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

Earlier today, Iraqi authorities said some 4,000 volunteers were being dispatched to an embattled city west of Baghdad to help bolster government forces fighting Sunni militants there.

Gen. Rasheed Flayeh, the commander of operations in Anbar province, says 2,500 of the reinforcements arrived Friday in Ramadi, and the rest are expected to arrive Saturday.

The vast majority of volunteers are Shiite who answered a call from the country's top Shiite cleric to defend the country from the militants have seized control of much of northern and western Iraq.

Ramadi is the capital of Anbar, a predominantly Sunni province and one of the most active fronts in Iraq. Militants overran parts of Ramadi early this year before the government reasserted its control.