Two policemen were killed and 19 people wounded, including four police officers, in a suicide car bomb attack targeted a convoy of a police commando chief in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a provincial police source told Xinhua on Thursday.
The attack occurred on Wednesday night when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into the convoy of police vehicles carrying Lieutenant Colonel Abdul-Hameed, chief of the 3rd Battalion of Diyala's police commando, while moving in al-Hadeed area, northwest of the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, the source from Diyala's operations command said on condition of anonymity.
The blast killed two police commandoes and wounded four officers, including Hameed, and ten commandoes, the source said, adding that five passers-by were also wounded by the blast.
Separately a roadside bomb went off on Thursday morning near a butcher shop and wounded the shop owner and two civilians in al- Gatoon area, some six km west of Baquba, the source added.
Diyala province, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border east of the country, has long been a stronghold for al-Qaida militants and other insurgent groups since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.