Bombing kills three in Iraq’s Diyala

A bomber has blown up his explosives-packed car at the central Iraqi police headquarters in the eastern city of Diyala, killing three people and wounding 30 others.

The attack came Thursday after the bomber crashed his car into the front gate of the police compound in the provincial capital of Baqouba, 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad, police sources said.

The dead included two policemen and a female journalist, AFP reported.

The journalist, Wejdan Assad al-Juburi, had been a reporter for the Iraq al-Mustaqal (Independent Iraq) newspaper.

Among the wounded were seven policemen, including a captain, two women and a young child, according to Ahmed Alwan, a doctor working at Baquba hospital.

The attack took place just a few blocks from a similar attack on Wednesday in which an attacker drove a bomb-packed ambulance into the headquarters of an Iraqi guard force that protects government buildings.

At least seven people were killed and 67 wounded as a result of the attack on Wednesday.

Deadly bomb attacks continue to target security and police forces amid a new surge of violence in the war-torn country.

The attacks in Baqouba followed another bombing in Tikrit on Tuesday in which 65 people in a crowd of police recruits were killed.

Also on Thursday morning, police and hospital officials in Baghdad said a roadside bomb wounded six pilgrims who were walking to Karbala, a holy city where religious rituals are about to peak in an end to a 40-day mourning period for Shias.