3 sahwa fighters killed, 4 wounded by gunmen fire near Kirkuk

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: Three sahwa (awakening) tribal fighters were killed and four others wounded by gunmen southwest of Kirkuk on Friday, said a source from the city’s Joint Coordination Center (JCC). “A sahwa checkpoint in al-Rashad district, near the village of Sami al-Aasi, (35 km) southwest of Kirkuk, came under fire today (May 7) by unidentified gunmen. The attack left three sahwa fighters killed and four others wounded,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. He did not give further details about the incident. Meanwhile, the same source said a force from the Iraqi army’s 3rd contingent, 46th Brigade, 12th Division, acting upon intelligence tip-offs, launched earlier on Friday a search raid in the village of al-Mansouriya, al-Huweija district, (65 km) southwest of Kirkuk, capturing four suspects. He did not reveal the reasons behind the arrests and whether they had anything to do with the attack on the checkpoint. The oil-rich Kirkuk, a city of mixed Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen population, lies 250 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. AmR (P) 3