A senior leader of Awakening Council group in Iraq was shot dead in western Baghdad by unidentified gunmen, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Mulla Nadhim al-Jubouri, leader of the Sunni Arab militia and a religious leader in the town of Dhuluiyah, some 90 km north of Baghdad, was killed late on Tuesday night by gunmen using silenced weapons while driving his car in Jamia district, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Jubouri, who is introduced by the media as an expert with al- Qaida affairs, was a member of Dhuluiyah's most respected religious families. He first joined al-Qaida to fight the Americans after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, but then he switched sides to become leader of one of the U.S.-backed Awakening Councils that fought al-Qaida in his volatile country in north of Baghdad.

The Awakening Council group, also known as Sons of Iraq movement or Sahwa, was established in Anbar province west of Baghdad in 2006.

The Sahwa consists of mostly anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent militant groups, who turned their rifles to fight al-Qaida network after Sahwa's leaders became dismayed by al-Qaida's brutality and religious zealotry in the country.