Baghdad - Two members of a tribal force known as the Awakening Council were killed and eight others, including the council's chief, were injured in a car bomb near Kirkuk Sunday as the government said it was planning to form more tribal forces. A car parked in a garage near the offices of the local Awakening Council in Hawija was blown up Sunday morning, police sources in the northern city of Kirkuk told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The chief of the local council, Maj-Gen Hussein Ali was among the wounded.
Awakening Councils are forces of Sunni tribesmen allied with the US and Iraqi forces formed to fight insurgents from the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Improving security in Baghdad and surrounding areas has been partly attributed to the councils' anti-al-Qaeda campaign.
Attacks on council members have increased since December in the wake of a call made by the network's leader, Osama bin Laden, for insurgents to target members of the tribal forces.
The latest attack comes as the Iraqi government announced it was planning to form 10 more Awakening Councils raising their number to 42, the state-owned al-Sabah newspaper cited a cabinet official, Abud Wahid, as saying.
Members of councils operating mainly in Baghdad and the surrounding areas as well as restive parts of provinces nearby are to be gradually integrated into the security forces after being vetted.
The total number of council members is estimated to be 70,000, according to the newspaper.
They mainly provide support for regular security forces, help with rebuilding efforts in areas cleared of insurgency and the return of families displaced by the conflict to those areas.
The government plans to form tribal councils in restive areas in northern Iraq, such as Talafar, Mosul and some parts of Diyala and Salahaddin, Wahid said.
"The existence of the Awakening Councils will end when the security situation is stable and their integration in security forces completed. This will happen when sectarian violence comes to an end," said the official, who is a member of the national reconciliation committee in the cabinet.
The government has set up a department in charge of disarming paramilitary groups, collecting their arms and executing a compensation payment programme, for which millions of dollars are allocated in the Iraqi budget.
The department will also create jobs for members of dismantled militias.
