Death toll rises to 14 in Baghdad double suicide bombing

BAGHDAD, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Up to 14 people were killed and 18 others were injured in two suicide bomb attacks outside the Sunni endowment office in northern Baghdad on Monday, an Interior Ministry source said.

"Our latest reports about the double suicide bombing in Adhamiyah neighborhood said that 14 people were killed, including the leader of the Awakening Council group in the neighborhood, and18 others wounded," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up at the entrance of the Sunni endowment office, which cares for Sunni mosques and shrines across Iraq, at about 11:00 a.m. (0800 GMT) in the Saba'-Abkar area in the Adhamiyah district, the source said.

Afterwards, another suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a crowd of Awakening Council group members and security forces who were gathering outside the building to evacuate the casualties and blew up his car, he said.

Colonel Riyadh al-Samaraie, the leader of the U.S. and Iraqi government-backed Awakening Council group in the neighborhood, was killed by the attack, the source said.

Most of the victims were Awakening Council group members, the source added.

Earlier, the source put the toll at ten people killed and 16 others wounded.

Brigadier Qasim Atta al-Moussawi, spokesman of the Baghdad security plan said that six people were killed and 26 others wounded, including Samaraie.

Moussawi said that there are evidences indicating that al-Qaidain Iraq network is behind the attack.

Abu Nadeem, an official in the Sunni endowment office told Xinhua that at least ten people were killed in the explosion, including the son in law of the lawmaker Adnan al-Dulaimi, head ofthe Accordance Front, a major Sunni bloc in the Iraqi parliament.

Tha'ir, a guard in the attacked office, told Xinhua that "I saw about 20 bodies scattered at the entrance of the office."

"Colonel Samaraie, his son and six of his guards were among the killed," Tha'ir said.

Dozens of worried people gathered outside the Nu'man Hospital in the neighborhood to identify the victims, while U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and the Awakening Council fighters spread in the neighborhood to secure the area after the attack, witnesses said.

The Awakening Councils are groups of local Sunni neighborhoods fighters, including some powerful anti-U.S. insurgent groups, which have turned their rifles toward the al-Qaida network to provide security to their neighborhoods.

Rifts emerged between the Awakening Councils and the al-Qaida after the latter adopted a hardline Islam and exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.