Baghdad - A leading member of the Awakening Councils was killed and three others were wounded on Thursday by gunmen in Kirkuk, a police source said.

The unidentified gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint of the Awakening Councils, in the al-Zab district in southwest Kirkuk, the source told Voices of Iraq news agency.

The Awakening Councils, or Sahwa, leaders are Iraqi Sunni tribesmen who have joined with Iraqi and US forces to fight al-Qaeda insurgents in central and western Iraq.

These fighters have lately been a constant target of attacks believed to be carried out by the al-Qaeda network in Iraq.

On March 23 ten people were killed in two bomb attacks on markets in the Nasr we al-Salam district of Abu Ghraib - with most of the casualties from the Awakening Councils.

Later the same day, VOI reported that at least eight people, including two children, were killed in a bomb attack on the house of Sheikh Imad al-Halbusi, leader of an Awakening Council in the western province of Falluja,

Nine other people were wounded in that attack.(dpa)