BAGHDAD, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- Up to 23 people were killed and some 49 wounded when a suicide bomber struck a crowd of anti-Qaida Awakening Council members north of Baghdad on Monday, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.
"The latest report said that 21 Awakening Council members and two Iraqi soldiers were killed, while 42 members and seven soldiers were wounded," the source said on condition of anonymity.
The attack occurred around midday when a suicide bomber blew his explosive vest among a crowd of the group members who were collecting salaries near a military base in the town of Taji, some 20 km north of Baghdad, the source said.
Earlier, the source put the toll at four killed and 20 wounded.
The Awakening Council group, also known as Sons of Iraq movement or Sahwa, consists of mostly former anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent militant groups, who turned their rifles to fight al- Qaida network after their leaders became dismayed by al-Qaida's brutality and religious zealotry.
No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but al- Qaida front in Iraq often claimed the responsibility for most of the deadly attacks in the country.
Violence and high-profile bomb attacks are still common in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease in violence since its peak in 2006 and 2007, when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.
BAGHDAD, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi security forces thwarted a suicide bomb attack targeted a police headquarters in eastern Iraq, while gunmen killed a Baghdad provincial council employee on Wednesday, the police said.
In the early hours in the morning, the Iraqi security forces fought three suicide bombers wearing explosive vests trying to storm the police headquarters in the town of Hibhib, near Diyala's provincial capital of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Full story
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