Attacks in Diyala province claimed the lives of eighteen people on Thursday.

Attacks in Diyala province claimed the lives of eighteen people on Thursday.

Ten people were killed as a car bomb was exploded in a market in Diyala province, north of Baghdad.
"We counted 10 bodies and at least 20 wounded in the explosion of a car bomb parked near a vegetable market in Khalis," an Iraqi army colonel said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The casualty toll was confirmed by a medic at the main hospital in the Diyala provincial capital, Baquba.
"We received 10 bodies and admitted 25 wounded. Two policemen were among them," said Dr Firaz al-Dulaimi.

The attack comes just few weeks before a scheduled complete pull out for the US occupation troops at the end of the year.
Meanwhile and in a separate attack, gunmen using silencers raided three homes in the Diyala village of Jil al-Said, south of Baquba, killing eight people.

They killed five people in one house, three in a second and wounded five in the third, an army colonel said.
Among the killed two commanders of the Sahwa militia and members of their families, the army colonel said.