By Xinhua
Baghdad : A suicide truck bombing killed 12 people Monday when it struck a checkpoint manned by anti-al-Qaida fighters in a town north of Baghdad, local media said.
The attack took place in the morning when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden truck into a checkpoint in the town of Tarmiyah, some 30 km north of Baghdad.
The powerful blast killed 12 people including three children and nine members of the Awakening Councils backed by the U.S. and Iraqi governments.
The Awakening Councils are groups of local Sunni neighborhood fighters, who have turned their rifles toward the al-Qaida network to provide security to their neighborhoods.
Rifts emerged between the two sides after al-Qaida members adopted some hardline Islamic doctrines and exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
In an audiotape emerging Saturday, ai-Qaida top leader Osama bin Laden, warned Iraq’s Sunnis against joining the Awakening Councils or participating in any unity government.
The Awakening Councils have been credited in helping reduce the level of violence across Iraq by 60 percent since June, 2007.