Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    TIKRIT, Iraq, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The leader of anti-al-Qaida group in a village in Salahudin province was shot dead by a group of gunmen on Saturday, a provincial police source said.

    "Unknown armed men gunned down Ibrahim Talab al-Jubouri, leaderof al-Sahwa (or Awakening Council) group in the village of Kubaibah, east of the town of Duluiyah, some 90 km north of Baghdad," a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    Four of his men were wounded in the attack, the source added.

    According to the source, the attack took place when Jubouri wasdriving his car accompanying by some of his fighters in the area.

    Jubouri's death followed the killings of his two brothers who were separately assassinated by al-Qaida militants during the pastfew weeks.

    Sunni strongholds in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities are becoming focal points of a growing battles.

    In Baghdad's southern neighborhood of Doura, gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned by another anti-al-Qaida group, wounding three members of the group, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    Earlier in the day, an explosive charge detonated in the headquarters of al-Sahwah in the Adhamiyah neighborhood in northern Baghdad, killing one of the al-Sahwa's members and wounding eight others, a police source in the neighborhood told Xinhua.

    Another source from the Interior Ministry confirmed the incident,but put the toll at two killed and 10 wounded.

    The al-Sahwa organized by groups of local Sunni neighborhoods fighters, including some powerful anti-U.S. insurgent groups, haveturned their rifles toward the al-Qaida network in Iraq to preventtheir neighborhoods from gruesome terrorist attacks.

    Rifts emerged between local Sunnis and Sunni al-Qaida members since the later adopted a hardline Islam and exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.