4 killed in western Iraq suicide bombing

Four leaders of the paramilitary Awakening Council group were killed and seven others wounded in a suicide bomb attack at the local headquarters of the group in the city of Qaim in Anbar province on Sunday, a provincial police source said.

"The latest reports said that four were killed and seven others wounded by the suicide bombing in Qaim, some 330 km west of Baghdad," a source from the provincial operations command told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The attack took place at about 10:30 a.m. (0730 GMT) when a suicide bomber disguised in police uniform opened fire from his assault rifle on the guards at the entrance of the headquarter, who tried to approach the building where the leaders of the Awakening Council group were holding a meeting and later blew himself up, the source said.

The guards fired back and shot the attacker, but he managed to approach the building which is close to the entrance, the source added.

The powerful blast destroyed part of the headquarters building, including the hall of the meeting, and killed four leaders inside, he said.

The suicide attack is the second in the day against the anti- Qaida group, following another suicide bomber earlier in the day which struck Awakening Council group members who lined up to get salaries at a military base in the al-Radwaniyah area just west of Baghdad, killing 43 Sunni fighters and wounding 40 others, including several Iraq soldiers.

The Awakening Council group consists of armed groups, including some powerful anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent groups, who turned to fight the al-Qaida network after the latter exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.

Source: Xinhua