By Xinhua,
Baghdad : Two Awakening Council group fighters were killed and 18 people injured in a suicide attack on Monday at a checkpoint in the city of Baquba, capital of the volatile province of Diyala, a provincial police source said.
The incident occurred shortly before midday when a woman blew up her explosive-vest at a checkpoint manned by Awaking Council fighters in central Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
One of the killed was identified later as Ahmed al-Azawi, a head of the Awakening Council groups in the city, the source said, adding that the wounded were fighters and civilians.
The powerful blast also caused damages to several nearby shops and civilian cars, the source said.
Iraqi security forces immediately sealed off the main roads leading to the scene and began to evacuate the casualties, he added.
Suicide attacks carried out by females have become increasingly common in Iraq recently. The U.S. military said the al-Qaida militants prefer using female bombers because they can easily escape detection as the Iraqi police are reluctant to search them.
The Awakening Councils involve local armed groups, especially some powerful former insurgent groups, who fight the al-Qaida network after the latter exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
Diyala, including its capital Baquba, has long been the hotbed of insurgency since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, despite the ongoing security crackdown in the province conducted by U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces.