Four killed in bomb attacks in W. Iraq

Four people were killed and six wounded in two bomb attacks, including a suicide car bomb attack, in the Iraqi western province of Anbar on Thursday, a provincial police source told Xinhua. A suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a police checkpoint in the morning in the town of al-Baghdadi, some 170 km northwest of Baghdad, killing three policemen and wounding five others, the source said on condition of anonymity. The blast also set fire to two nearby civilian cars, the source said. In a separate incident, an Awakening Council group member was killed when a sticky bomb attached to his car detonated while he was driving in the town of Garma near the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, the source added. A civilian who was with the group member in his car was also wounded by the blast, he said. The Awakening Council group, or al-Sahwa in Arabic, consists of armed groups, including some powerful anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent groups, who fought al-Qaida group militants in the Sunni Arab areas during the years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Insurgent attacks continue in the once volatile Sunni Arab area in west of Baghdad that stretches through Anbar province to Iraq's western borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.