BAGHDAD - Gunmen kidnapped eight members of a US-backed neighbourhood militia in Baghdad and shot dead one of their leaders, officials said on Tuesday, a day after a suicide bomber blew up another Awakening leader. “Gunmen in five cars arrived in Shaab neighbourhood on Monday evening and abducted eight Shia Awakening members who were controlling a checkpoint,” an interior ministry official told AFP.Shaab, in northeast Baghdad, is a mainly Shia neighbourhood where members of anti-Qaeda fronts being set across the country by the US military, known as Awakening councils, have taken control of security. Awakening groups, which the US military says have contributed to a 62 percent fall in attacks across the country since June, have been formed mainly in Sunni areas but also increasingly in Shia-dominated neighbourhoods and towns.
Ismael Abbas, the Awakening leader in Shaab, was shot dead in the street by gunmen using silencers, the official said.