Baghdad - In a further escalation of violence in northern Iraq, attacks on members of Sunni Arab tribal forces allied with the US left 22 killed and three injured, including four children and 10 suspected members of al-Qaeda. Six members of the tribal force, known as the Awakening Council, and 10 suspected members of al-Qaeda were killed in fighting south- west of Mosul, 400 kilometres north of Baghdad, the chief of the Awakening Council in Nineveh province, Fawaz al-Jirba, told the Voices of Iraq VOI news agency.
The fighting follwed an attack by al-Qaeda members on two villages south-east of Mosul. Two women and four children were killed in the clashes.
The attack comes as Mosul braces for an expected military offensive, which the Iraqi Army has been gathering troops and equipment for.
Another attack on the local Awakening Council in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk left three of them wounded by a car bomb.
The car-bomb attacker hit a patrol by the tribal force Sunday morning on the main road linking Hawija and Abasi, south-west of Kirkuk, police said.
Many of the local tribal groups are former insurgents. They are recruited and funded by the US military, mainly in Iraq's Sunni Arab areas, to fight Islamic extremists.
Violence targeting their members has increased. The leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, Osama bin Laden, has recently called on his followers in Iraq to step up attacks on members of the Awakening Councils.
The tribal forces have brought calm to many restive areas, such as the Sunni-dominated Anbar, but friction between them and local governments is emerging.
In Diyala province, north-east of Baghdad, 300 members of the local tribal force left their outposts on Saturday.
They are protesting the "sectarian" policy of Staff General Ghanim al-Quraishi, the province's Shiite police commander, whom they accuse of being a member of the Shiite al-Mahdi Army militia, headed by the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, according to media reports.
Tension has been reported in Anbar where members of the tribal forces are at odds with the local government run by the Iraqi Islamic Party over control of the provincial council.
In Tikrit, also in the north, the bodies of three brothers were found, according to sources at the operation command of Salahaddin province.
A relative of the brothers said an Iraqi Army force killed them in the presence of their families and US forces.
But a security source said the three, armed with weapons and hand grenades, opened fire from a building on a joint US-Iraqi force, which returned the fire and killed them.
