Eurasia Press & News
FALLUJA, Iraq – A suicide bomber killed six people in Iraq’s Anbar province on Sunday, mounting the second deadly bombing in as many days in a region where violence has plunged since local tribes rebelled against al Qaeda.
Local officials said the attack took place in a town south of the city of Falluja where people were celebrating the release of a man from U.S. military custody. The bomber walked into the man’s house and blew himself up, they said.
Hospital officials said six people were killed, including the man who had been freed. Seven people were wounded.
On Saturday, two suicide bombers killed six policemen and wounded 13 others outside a police station west of Ramadi in Anbar, once the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency but which has been transformed since local tribes allied with U.S. forces.
The U.S. military has often warned that al Qaeda will try to make a comeback in Anbar, where it once controlled swathes of territory in the vast desert region until many of its gunmen were driven out in the past year.
In December, the U.S. military said the number of attacks in Anbar was the lowest on record.
The U.S. military has said it could hand over security control of Anbar to Iraqi forces in March or April, underscoring the remarkable turnaround.
