The leader of a US-allied Sunni tribal coalition in the Iraqi province of Anbar was killed in an explosion on Thursday, hours before President George W. Bush was due to deliver a speech on Washington’s Iraq policy.

Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha, whose Anbar Salvation Council has been cited by US officials as having turned the tide against al-Qaeda in the western province, was killed along with two of his bodyguards by a roadside bomb near his home in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.