The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Baghdad

A double bombing killed at least seven people and wounded 25 Monday outside the Baghdad office of a government agency that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines, witnesses and a hospital official said. A police officer, however, put the death toll as high as 14.

In the first attack, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at the entrance to the Sunni Endowment office in Baghdad's northern Azamiyah district, witnesses and an army official said. As people rushed away, a second explosion - believed to have been caused by a roadside bomb - occurred just yards away.

The dead included Riyadh al-Samarrai, head of a local U.S.-backed armed group, said one witness, an employee of the Sunni Endowment. His account was corroborated by a member of the armed group, who gave his name only as Abu Omar, and by an Iraqi army official.

Another witness, one of al-Samarrai's guards, said the suicide bomber walked up to al-Samarrai - a former police colonel - and embraced him before detonating his explosives.

Most witnesses and officials spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals or because they were not officially authorized to speak to media. The differing death tolls could not immediately be reconciled.

An official at Azamiyah's al-Noaman hospital said his hospital had received seven bodies, but the police officer said some casualties had also been taken to another hospital in the city.

The U.S.-backed groups - predominantly Sunni Arab fighters who turned against al-Qaida and are known as "awakening councils" - have been credited with helping reduce violence across Iraq by 60 percent since June. But they are increasingly becoming targets, with several recent bombings striking their offices and checkpoints.

The Azamiyah area had been a stronghold of Sunni insurgents since 2003 as well as a safe haven for al-Qaida in Iraq militants. Local insurgents, however, rose against al-Qaida last year and joined the U.S. military in the fight against the terror network.

The switch of allegiance by the Azamiyah insurgents was one of the most significant in a series of similar moves across Baghdad's Sunni neighborhoods. Azamiyah is home to Iraq's most revered Sunni shrine, the mosque of Imam Abu Hanifa and many in the Tigris-side area served as officers in Saddam Hussein's army and security agencies, giving an edge to the insurgency there.

In an audiotape released Dec. 29, Osama bin Laden warned Iraq's Sunni Arabs against joining the groups or participating in any unity government.

U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said last week the attacks were the "clearest indication" that the foreign-led al-Qaida was worried about losing the support of its fellow Sunni Arabs.

A number of insurgent groups are thought to have switched allegiances and joined the "awakening" movement. There are more than 70,000 men in about 300 such groups being bankrolled by the U.S. around Iraq, and the number is expected to grow.