(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-08 20:11

BAGHDAD -- Gunmen abducted eight of US-backed Shiite Awakening Council members in northeastern Baghdad, a well-informed police source said on Tuesday.

The attack occurred on Monday evening when unknown gunmen in five sport utility vehicles surrounded a checkpoint manned by the Awakening Council group members of the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shaab and kidnapped them, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Two days earlier, unknown gunmen in a civilian car shot dead Ismail Abbas, the leader of the group in the neighborhood, the source said.

Also on Monday, a twin suicide bomb attacks struck the Sunni endowment office in Baghdad's neighborhood of Adhamiyah, killing up to 14 people and wounding 18 others, according to an Interior Ministry source.

Most of the victims were the neighborhood's Awakening Council group members, who fight the al-Qaida in Iraq network, including their local leader Ryadh al-Samarie, the source said.

The US bankrolled Awakening groups in Sunni neighborhoods and increasingly in Shiite ones, which has contributed in reducing sectarian bloodshed in the country over the past six months.

However, insurgents adamantly stepped up campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations to kill a large number of people.