Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Three members of Awakening Council fighters were killed and five people injured in two bomb attacks in Baghdad on Thursday, an Interior Ministry source said.

    A twin roadside bombs detonated near a checkpoint manned by Awakening Council members in the Sunni area of Shiek Omer, killing two of the group fighters and wounded three others, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    Two civilians were also wounded by the blasts which occurred during the morning rush hour, the source said.

    In a separate incident, a local leader of the Awakening Council group was killed in the Abu Ghraib area in western Baghdad, when an explosive charge planted in his car went off on Thursday morning, the source added.

    Recently, a wave of bomb attacks and gunfire killed dozens of the councils' fighters.

    The Awakening Council groups, or Sahwa fighters, are U.S.-backed armed groups, which turn their weapons against the al-Qaida network after the latter exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.