Maliki vowed in January to uproot al-Qaida members in the province where they were believed to have regrouped after being defeated in Baghdad and other Iraqi provinces.

However, extremist al-Qaida militants, struck on Saturday two anti-Qaida armed groups based in Diyala province, killing and wounding several people.

Earlier in the morning, some 20 armed men stormed the base of the Awakening Council group in the town of Wajihiyah, 20 km east of the Diyala provincial capital Baquba, killing three of the group members and wounding six others.

Around midday, a woman suicide bomber blew up an explosive vest outside another base of Awakening Council group in central Baquba, killing a policeman and a nearby woman and wounding more than ten other people. Several council members were among the wounded people.

The Awakening Council involves local armed groups, especially some powerful anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent groups, who fight the al-Qaida network after the latter exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.

(Xinhua News Agency May 18, 2008)