BAGHAD — Twin car bombings targeted a meeting of Sunni tribal leaders Monday, killing as many as 22 people in the latest attack against U.S. allies who have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The attackers managed to penetrate heavy security to leave bomb-rigged cars near a Baghdad compound hosting chieftains from western Anbar province, where the so-called Awakening Council movement against al-Qaeda emerged last year.
The blasts also were near the offices of one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite politicians, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim. But Iraqi authorities said the apparent target was the Sunni tribal heads.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, pressed forward with its campaign against Shiite extremists refusing to follow a cease-fire ordered by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who controls the most powerful Shiite militia faction. The cease-fire expires this month.
U.S. soldiers captured a suspected Shiite militia commander and one other suspect Monday after several days of raids in Shiite holy cities south of the capital.
Also Monday, the U.S. military announced the death of a GI killed in a roadside bombing a day earlier. At least 3,960 U.S. service members have died in Iraq since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
