Suicide bomber kills five near Baghdad - police

BAGHDAD, July 22 (Reuters) Five people were killed when a suicide bomber drove a minivan packed with up to half a tonne of explosives into a house where Sunni tribal leaders opposed to al Qaeda were meeting north of Baghdad today, police said.

Police sources in Taji, about 20 km (12 miles) north of the Iraqi capital, said the five killed were all local Sunni tribal chiefs. Twelve others were wounded.

A US military unit at the scene later said tribal leaders were not among those killed and that the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers, who were among the five dead.

''There were no Sunni leaders killed in the attack but at this point we believe three local nationals were killed and 13 were wounded,'' said Major Randall Baucom, a US military spokesman in Taji.

The leaders were meeting in an area known as Jurf al-Milih near Taji to discuss joining U.S. and Iraqi forces in fighting al Qaeda in their mainly Sunni Arab area.

An Iraqi army source said the local Sunni tribal chiefs were meeting after talks were held in Taji on Friday with local Shi'ite leaders. Those talks were held under the protection of US forces, the army source said.

US military commanders have been trying to expand their plan, first used in the violent western province of Anbar, of recruiting local Sunnis tired of indiscriminate al Qaeda violence into special provincial police units.

The militant group is blamed for stoking sectarian hatred and violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs who were dominant under Saddam Hussein.

The US military began a security crackdown in Baghdad five months ago which initially helped bring down the number of sectarian murders but which also pushed al Qaeda fighters out of the capital and into surrounding areas.

US and Iraqi forces later launched another big operation in mid-June coinciding with the arrival of the last of 28,000 extra US troops in Iraq.

REUTERS RJ RAI2213