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2 killed, 5 injured in attacks in Iraq

24 March 2012 20:24 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Two policemen were killed and five people injured Saturday in separate bomb and gunfire attacks in central and eastern Iraq, while the Iraqi security forces captured a suicide bomber in Baghdad, the police said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

In central Iraq, a roadside bomb went off near a police vehicle in southern of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, killing one policeman aboard and wounding two others, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Also in Fallujah, gunmen planted bombs in the house of Shiekh Khaldoun Eliwi, a leader of the government-backed Awakening Council group, and blew them up in the town of Saqlawiyah northern of the city, injuring three members of his family, the source said.

Eliwi himself escaped the blast unharmed as he was not at the house when the attack occurred, the source added.

The Awakening Council group, also known as Sons of Iraq movement or Sahwa, consists of mostly anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent militant groups, who turned their rifles to fight al-Qaida network after Sahwa’s leaders became dismayed by al-Qaida’s brutality and religious zealotry.

In Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, gunmen using assault rifles opened fire on a policeman in front of his house in the town of Baladrouz, some 95 km northeast Baghdad, shot him dead before they fled the scene, a provincial police source anonymously told Xinhua.

Also in the province, police forces raided a safe house of an insurgents cell in an area located just west of the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, arresting three suspects, the source said.

In Baghdad, Iraqi security forces arrested a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest at a checkpoint in the capital’s northwestern district of Hurriyah, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Troops deployed in the district were looking for a female suicide bomber who believed to be split from the bomber before his arrest, he said.

The attacks came a few days ahead of the Arab League summit as Baghdad is preparing to host the leaders of the Arab nations on March 29.