Woman killed, 3 girls wounded in Diala attack

DIALA / IraqiNews.com: A woman was killed and three girls were wounded in an armed attack on their house in Diala province, a police source said on Sunday. “During an early hour on Sunday morning, a group of gunmen, believed to belong to al-Qaeda network, clad in National Guard uniforms, raided the house of Adnan al-Azzawi in al-Mansouriya district (45 km east of Baaquba), killing a woman, wounding three girls and kidnapping a fifth from the same family,” the source told IraqiNews.com. The source did not provide further details of the reasons behind the attack. Diala province, a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, extends to the northeast of Baghdad as far as the Iranian border. Its capital is Baaquba, 57 km northeast of Baghdad. It covers an area of 17,685 square kilometers (6,828 sq mi). A large portion of the province is drained by the Diala River, a major tributary of the Tigris. Because of its proximity to two major sources of water, Diala’s main industry is agriculture, primarily dates grown in large Date Palm groves. It is also recognized as the orange capital of the Middle East. In January 2008 Operation Phantom Phoenix was launched in an attempt to eradicate the remnants of al-Qaeda network following the Diala province campaign between 2006 and 2007. SS (S) 1