A suicide bomber attacked a government-backed militia in Iraq on Monday, killing at least 22 people in an apparent attempt by Sunni insurgents to provoke unrest against Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Dressed in civilian clothes, the bomber infiltrated a meeting of Sahwa tribal fighters and detonated his explosives as they picked up salaries in Taji, a town 20 km (12 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, police said.
It was the seventh suicide bombing in a month in Iraq, indicating insurgents are intent on stepping up violence a year after US troops pulled out of the country, where Shia, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish factions still struggle over how to share power. "We got a call there had been a huge blast on the Sahwa headquarters in Taji. The Sahwa were there to collect their pay," said local police commissioner Furat Faleh. "When we rushed to the hall ... people were lying bleeding all around and cash was scattered in pools of blood."
The Sahwa or "Sons of Iraq" are former Sunni insurgents who rebelled against al Qaeda in the Sunni heartland province of Anbar at the height of the Iraq war and helped American troops to turn the tide of the conflict. No group claimed responsibility for Monday's attack but al Qaeda's affiliate, Islamic State of Iraq, has often targeted Sahwa, pledging to take back ground lost to American and US forces, and has urged Sunnis to rise up against Maliki. A suicide bomber and gunmen killed at least 33 people at the police headquarters in the disputed northern oil city of Kirkuk on Sunday.
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