By Xinhua
Baghdad : At least three members of an Awakening Council group were killed and seven others wounded by a car bomb attack in a raid on al-Qaida hideout south of Baghdad on Thursday, an Interior Ministry source said.
“A booby-trapped vehicle detonated in the afternoon when a group of Awakening Council fighters raided a house in the Khannasah village near the town of Madain, some 30 km southeast of Baghdad,” the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
U.S. and Iraqi security forces sealed off the area after the blast that killed at least three of the Sunni group fighters and wounded seven others, according to the source who cited first police reports.
The Awakening Council groups, are Sunni fighters who turned up against al-Qaida in Iraq network. They are cooperating with the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces by guarding neighborhoods or providing information.
Rifts emerged between predominantly Sunni insurgent groups and the al-Qaida in Iraq organization after the latter adopted a hardline Islam and exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.