By Xinhua
Baghdad : The death toll from the twin suicide bomb attacks, which targeted the Sunni endowment office in northern Baghdad on Monday morning, rose to 10 and 16 others wounded, security sources and witnesses said.
“The toll rose to 10 people killed and 16 others injured by the two suicide bomb attacks in Adhamiyah district,” an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up at the entrance of the Sunni endowment office, which cares for Sunni mosques and shrines across Iraq, at about 11:00 a.m. (0800 GMT) in the Saba’-Abkar area in the Adhamiyah district, the source said.
Afterwards, another suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a crowd of Awakening Council group members and security forces who were gathering outside the building to evacuate the casualties and blew up his car, he said.
Colonel Riyadh al-Samaraie, the leader of the U.S. and Iraqi government-backed Awakening Council group in the neighborhood, was killed by the attack, the source said.
Most of the victims were Awakening Council group members, the source added.
Earlier, the source put the toll at six people killed and more than 15 others wounded.
Brigadier Qasim Atta al-Moussawi, spokesman of the Baghdad security plan said that six people killed and 26 others wounded, including Samarie.
Mousawi said that there is some evidences indicate that Qaida in Iraq network is behind the attack.
Abu Nadeem, an official in the Sunni office told Xinhua that at least ten people were killed, including the son in law of the lawmaker Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Accordance Front, a major Sunni bloc in the Iraqi parliament.
Tha’ir, a guard in the attacked office, told Xinhua that “I saw about twenty bodies scattered at the entrance of the office.”
“Colonel Samarie, his son and six of his guards were among the killed,” Tha’ir said.
The Awakening Councils are groups of local Sunni neighborhoods fighters, including some powerful anti-U.S. insurgent groups, have turned their rifles toward the al-Qaida network to provide security to their neighborhoods.
Rifts emerged between the two sides after the al-Qaida members adopted a hardline Islam and exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.