Sunni chiefs killed in Iraq blast
Pastor Dale Morgan
Sunni chiefs killed in Iraq blast*
BBC - Five Sunni Arab tribal leaders have been killed in a suicide
attack in Iraq's Diyala province, police say.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt in the house of Sheikh
Faez al-Obeidi, killing him and four of his relatives.
Those killed were members of the Diyala Salvation Council, a group
opposed to the presence of al-Qaeda militants in the province,
north-east of Baghdad.
Ten others were wounded in the blast, which happened near the town of
Khalis.
Diyala province, home to a mixture of Sunnis and Shias, has become a key
battleground in the struggle to drive al-Qaeda from Iraq.
Until a few months ago, al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni Arab insurgent
groups in the province fought together against Iraqi government and
US-led forces.
Reprisals
But increasing numbers of the militants' former allies in the Sunni
community have turned against them, mainly because they dislike the
austere form of Islam that they practise.
The US has provided them with training and arms.
The uprising began in the troubled Anbar province, once a stronghold of
the Sunni insurgency, but has since spread to Diyala province and some
areas of Baghdad.
It has not gone without reprisal. Attacks have been carried out against
a number of anti-al-Qaeda Sunni figures.
The leader of the Anbar Awakening, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, was
killed in a bomb attack near his home in Ramadi in September.
A senior member of the Salahuddin Awakening Council, Sheikh Muawiya
Jebara, was killed by a roadside bomb along with three of his bodyguards
in October.
A Sunni religious leader who encouraged his community to confront
al-Qaeda in Iraq, Sheikh Yunis al-Tai, was also killed by a blast at his
home in Diyala province in August.