DHULUIYA, Iraq, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Gunmen attacked two houses in a village north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing six people including a former Iraqi army officer and two members of a U.S.-backed neighbourhood patrol, police and witnesses said.

The attack was the latest to target members of "Awakening" volunteer security patrols in one of the northern provinces where U.S. forces are recruiting locals to help crack down on Sunni Arab al Qaeda militants.

"Gunmen, possibly from al Qaeda, simultaneously attacked two houses in the village of al-Siddiq," said police Lieutenant-Colonel Mohammed Abdullah in the nearby town of Dhuluiya in restive Salahuddin province.

"In the first attack they killed former Iraqi army Lieutenant-Colonel Ziyad Ibrahim and his 14-year-old son. In the second attack, they killed a man and his three sons. The man, Saadoun Ahmed, and one of his sons worked for the Awakening."

Witness Dhiyab Khalaf, 50, said: "They came in a black car. Four gunmen got out near the house of Sa'adoun Ahmed, then I heard shooting and women crying. When I arrived I saw the bodies of Sa'adoun and his son Ahmed. A few metres away we found the bodies of the two other sons, Hakim, 16, and Mohammed, 15."

U.S. forces say al Qaeda is targeting the volunteers in a stepped-up campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations because the neighbourhood patrols have succeeded in driving the militants out of communities and reducing overall violence.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who is not thought to have direct control over the followers who use his organisation's name in Iraq, threatened in an audio message last month that al Qaeda would strike "Awakening" volunteers.

U.S. forces launched Operation Phantom Phoenix last week, describing it as a countrywide offensive against al Qaeda, especially focusing on the outskirts of Baghdad and three northern provinces including Salahuddin.

(Reporting by Ghazwan al-Jibouri, writing by Aws Qusay and Peter Graff in Baghdad)

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