Sunni leader reported killed

BAGHDAD —  Gunmen killed a senior leader of a U.S.-allied Sunni Muslim group and six of his guards in an ambush south of Baghdad, a group member and residents said Tuesday.

The U.S. military confirmed casualties in an attack on the man’s house but denied that he was killed.

Sheik Ibrahim Karbouli’s convoy came under attack Monday in Yousifiya, one of his followers and several residents said. All spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for their security.

The sheik was a senior leader of the so-called Awakening Council in the town, a former stronghold of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq about 12 miles south of Baghdad.

The two versions of events -- one from a group member and several townspeople and another from the U.S. military -- could not be immediately reconciled.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has frequently mounted reprisal attacks against Awakening Councils because of their success in cutting into support for the insurgency among Iraq’s Sunni Arabs.

Near the disputed northern city of Kirkuk, police discovered the bodies of three Awakening Council members abducted several days earlier, police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir said.

In Baghdad, a series of bombings Tuesday killed two people and wounded 19.

Along the border with Syria, 200 Palestinian refugees in makeshift desert camps got approval for resettlement in Sweden and Iceland.

The Palestinian community in Iraq has become a target for persecution largely because others in the country thought Palestinians were favored under the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.