BAQUBA, Iraq - A suicide bomber blew himself up on Friday near the office of a former Sunni insurgent group turned US military ally, killing a woman, a top army officer said.Brigadier General Raghbi al-Omairi of the Iraqi army said the bomber detonated his explosive vest outside the office of the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution, a former Sunni insurgent group, northeast of Baghdad. Two civilians were also wounded in the attack in the town of Muqdadiyah, near Baquba, the capital of the restive Diyala province.
The office belonged to the groupÂ’s Sahwa (Awakening) Organisation, a movement structured on the lines of the Anbar Awakening Council formed by tribal sheikhs in the western Iraqi province of Anbar to fight the Al Qaeda in Iraq group. Members of the Brigades fought the US military after the fall of the former regime but in the past few months have aligned with it to counter the Al Qaeda assaults in the Sunni regions of the country. These former insurgents are now conducting joint operations with the US troops but are also being targeted by Al Qaeda.