Five people were injured in clashes between local fighters and suspected al-Qaida militants in town southeast of Baghdad on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry source said.
"Fierce clashes erupted between fighters from an Awaking Council Sunni group, who fight the al-Qaida network in Iraq, and gunmen suspected to be al-Qaida militants in the al-Madain town, 30 km southeast of Baghdad, wounding five people," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The Awakening councils are groups of local Sunni fighters, including some powerful anti-U.S. insurgent groups who have turned their rifles toward the al-Qaida network to provide security to their neighborhoods.
The fighters turned to fight the al-Qaida as the latter adopted a hardline Islam and exercised indiscriminate killings in both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
In a separate incident, a roadside bomb detonated near a U.S. patrol in the Bab al-Mua'dham area in central the capital on Wednesday, causing damages to one of the patrol's Humvees, the source said.
It was unclear whether the U.S. army sustained any human casualty as the troops immediately cordoned off the area, preventing the Iraqi security forces from approaching the scene, he added.
The U.S. military has not confirmed the incident yet.
Source:Xinhua
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