Iraq violence causes fatalities, Sunni politician killed (Roundup)

Jul 7, 2008, 14:23 GMT

Baghdad - Iraq was rocked on Monday by a fresh outbreak of violence across the country, including a suicide bombing carried out by a woman and a deadly attack on a Sunni politician.

In the attack by a female suicide bomber in the restive Diyala province, at least two people were killed and 14 injured in a popular market.

Wearing a suicide belt, the bomber hit the market in the Mafraq area of central Baquba, 57 kilometres north-east of Baghdad, a local security official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The fatalities include a woman and a man as well as the bomber, and a number of children and women were among the wounded, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was the 17th suicide bombing carried out by a woman in Diyala this year, according to figures released by the head of the local council, Ibrahim Bajlan.

The last suicide attack carried out by a woman in Diyala hit a centre belonging to the tribal police force fighting al-Qaeda insurgents north-east of Baquba on June 26.

Three tribal volunteers were injured in the attack.

Diyala, known for its palm groves and orange orchards, became the stronghold of the Sunni extremist al-Qaeda in Iraq group, who find a safe haven in the province's groves and farms.

The group, which is most associated with suicide bombings and beheadings, has been recruiting widows and destitute women to carry out suicide attacks as women are not normally subjected to body searches.

In the western Anbar province, a suicide bomber hit a checkpoint manned by members of a tribal police force, injuring nine, according to security sources.

The assailant driving a car bomb hit the security checkpoint manned by tribal volunteers from the so-called Awakening Councils in al-Simsimiya near the town of Rawa, security sources told the Voices of Iraq VOI news agency.

Tribal chiefs in Anbar formed their own police squads with US backing to fight Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq group, who were enforcing a strict version of the Islamic Sharia law in the province.

Other Sunni-dominated provinces formed their own councils to fight the militant group, also known as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

In the northern province in Nineveh, gunmen killed a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Mohamed Abdul Barry Sharzi, security sources told VOI.

The gunmen shot Sharzi dead in his house in al-Homa village in Talafar, some 400 kilometers north of Baghdad.

The Iraqi Islamic Party is a Sunni group led by Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi.