Car bomb kills at least 6 in Iraq's Diyala: Police

Baghdad, June 3: A car bomb in a busy market killed at least six people and wounded 25 in a volatile region northeast of Baghdad today, police said.

The explosion rocked the town of Balad Ruz, about 50 km southeast of Diyala province's capital Baquba.

In a separate incident today, gunmen at a fake checkpoint killed five people and wounded seven others when they opened fire on two minibuses near Baquba.

No other details were immediately available about either incident.

Diyala is a large, religiously and ethnically mixed province which has seen some of the worst violence in Iraq since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in March 2003.

Sectarian killings and attacks by al Qaeda occur regularly in Diyala, which is a mainly Sunni Arab province but also has significant Shi'ite and Kurdish populations.

About 3,000 extra US troops have been sent to Diyala to combat a recent spike in violence.

Reuters>