Free Republic

Suspected Al-Qaeda militants attacked a village in Diyala province north of Baghdad and beheaded five members of a local group fighting the jihadist network, police said. Police Lieutenant Colonel Najim al-Sumaidaie said the militants raided the village of Benizad, south of the provincial capital Baquba, and attacked a newly created outpost of a local anti-Qaeda "Awakening" group. "Five people from the Sahwa (Awakening) group were shot dead and later beheaded by the militants," Sumaidaie said, referring to groups of mostly Sunni Arabs who have allied with the US military to fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq. "We set up the outpost with...