Series of attacks kill 78 in Iraq

A roadside bomb went off at a checkpoint manned by government-backed Sahawa paramilitary group fighters in Yousifiyah town, 25 km south of Baghdad, killing three group fighters and wounding four others, a police source said.

Elsewhere, gunmen in a car fired at a Sahwa leader and his bodyguards in Hawijah city's Zab area, some 220 km north of Baghdad, killing three of his bodyguards and wounding the leader, police said.

The Sahwa militia, also known as the ‘awakening council' or the ‘sons of Iraq', consists of armed groups, including some powerful anti-US Sunni insurgent groups, who turned against the Al Qaeda network after Sahwa's leaders became dismayed by the militant group's brutality and religious zealotry in the country.