A suicide bomber targeted a group of Sunni Arab militia men in the southern Iraqi province of Babel today as they queued at an Iraqi army post to collect paychecks, killing 9 and wounding 31, police said.
The bomber mingled with a crowd of about 250 Awakening Council members outside the headquarters and blew himself up, police spokesman Major Muthana Khalid said.
The explosion took place around 11am in Jbala, about 35 miles south of Baghdad.
The US-sponsored Sunni patrolmen, or Sahwas, helped cut violence in Iraq after they turned on al Qaeda and other insurgent groups, but ties between them and the government in Baghdad have been strained in recent weeks by the arrest of Sahwa leaders.
Agencies