14 killed in violent attacks across Iraq

Fourteen people were killed and 19 others wounded in separate violent attacks across Iraq on Sunday, police said. In Salahudin province, dozens of gunmen in 15 vehicles attacked the house of a leader of a government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group at a village in north of the Samarra city, some 120 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The attack, which occurred in the early morning hours, sparked fierce clash with guards of the house and resulted in the killing of three women and a young man from the leader's family and wounding of four of his sons and seven guards, the source said, adding that the Sahwa leader himself escaped the attack unharmed. The Sahwa militia, also known as the Awakening Council or the Sons of Iraq, consists of armed groups, including some powerful anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent groups, who turned their rifles against the al-Qaida network after the latter exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities. In a separate incident, a gunman entered a money exchange office and shot dead its owner and wounded his cousin in the city of Shirqat, some 280 km north of Baghdad, the source said, adding that the wounded cousin fired back and killed the attacker. In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a civilian was killed and another wounded when gunmen using silenced weapons attacked their car near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source anonymously told Xinhua. Also in the province, a member of a Sahwa paramilitary group was killed and another wounded by gunmen near the town of Hibhib, some 20 km northwest of Baquba, the source said. In Anbar province, army helicopter gunships bombarded the house of Rafie al-Meshhin, an anti-government Sunni tribal leader, in the town of Garma, just east of the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, leaving four civilians killed, a provincial police source said. Anbar province has been the scene of fierce clashes that flared up after Iraqi police dismantled an anti-government protest site outside Ramadi in late December last year. Separately, gunmen opened fire on the car of an army intelligence member and shot him dead in Abu Ghraib area, some 25 km west of Baghdad, the source added. In addition, a police force found an unidentified body of a male shot with bullets in his head and chest in Abu Ghraib area, he said.