A suicide bomber struck a police checkpoint in a town in the volatile Diyala province on Monday, killing two people and wounding 20 others, a provincial police source said.
The attack took place at about 10:30 a.m. local time (0730 GMT) when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up at the checkpoint outside a police station in the town of Maqdadiyah, some 110 km northeast of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Earlier in the day, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up outside the house of Sheikh Ghadhban al-Karkhi in the town of Kanaan, southeast of the capital city of Baquba, killing the Sheikh, two of his family members and a guard, the source said.
The source said the woman arrived at the house of the Sheikh in the morning and asked to meet him as he was head of the Karkhiyah Sunni Arab clan in the town.
The woman then blew up her explosive vest when the Sheikh and his companions came out to meet with her, he said. U.S. and Iraqi officials said that militant groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq network, has increasingly used women, children and disabled people as suicide bombers to carry out blasts in crowded areas in Iraq.
Diyala province, which stretches from eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border, has long been a stronghold of al-Qaida militant groups and hot bed of insurgency and sectarian violence since the U.S.-led invasion broke out in 2003.
Source: Xinhua
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