Suspected Al Qaeda militants have attacked a village in Diyala province north of Baghdad and beheaded five members of a local group fighting the jihadist network, police have said.Police Lieutenant Colonel Najim al-Sumaidaie said the militants raided the village of Benizad, south of the provincial capital Baquba, and attacked a newly created outpost of a local anti-Al Qaeda 'Awakening' group. "Five people from the Sahwa (Awakening) group were shot dead and later beheaded by the militants," the police officer said, referring to groups of mostly Sunni Arabs who have allied with the US military to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq.
One of the members of the group who survived the attack with injuries said they had established the outpost. "We set up the outpost with the help of Iraqi army soldiers who later left us to man the post. However, this afternoon we were attacked," he said from his bed in a hospital in Baquba where he is being treated for his wounds. "Five of our number were killed after we ran short of ammunition. Another 10 of us escaped. We later alerted the army, who went to the village and found that the five men who were shot dead had been beheaded. Their bodies were mutilated."
Diyala is one of the most dangerous regions of Iraq where US and Iraqi troops are fighting Al Qaeda militants.
The Awakening groups began in western Anbar province where Sunni tribal leaders in September 2006 turned on their former Al Qaeda allies and put them to flight.
Since then, they have sprung up across the country, supported and paid for by the US military, which sees them as essential to help hold areas cleared by an American "surge" of some 30,000 troops.