A female suicide bomber blew himself up today in the midst of a local counter-insurgency group in Diyala province in which at least two people killed & 10 others injured. The woman, wearing an explosive belt, struck at the members of the Awakening Council who were manning a checkpoint in the town of Abu Saida, 90 km northeast of Baghdad.

The Awakening Councils are armed neighbourhood groups, including some powerful anti-US Sunni insurgent elements, who fight the Al Qaeda network.

Diyala province, which stretches from eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border, has long been the stronghold of Al Qaeda militant groups & hotbed of insurgency and sectarian violence since the US-led invasion in 2003.