One killed, 11 injured in Iraq's Diyala province

One civilian was killed Wednesday and 11 others were injured in separate bomb and gunfire attacks in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a provincial police source said. A roadside bomb went off near a medical center in Diyala's capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, killing one civilian and injuring another, a source from Diyala's operations command told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. In a separate incident, Lieutenant Col. Abdul-Hameed Mahmoud, a deputy police chief, escaped unharmed a roadside bomb explosion near his convoy in the town of Bani Sa'ad near Baquba, while he was heading in the morning to work in the town, the source said. The blast destroyed one of the convoy's vehicles and injured two of Mahmoud's bodyguards aboard and two passers-by, the source said. Also in the province, two local Awakening Council group members were wounded when gunmen attack their checkpoint in the town of al- Hadeed some 10 km west of Baquba, the source added. The attack was followed by a powerful blast of a booby-trapped motorcycle at the scene, wounding four civilians, he said. 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.