BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Two people were killed Wednesday and five soldiers wounded in two bomb attacks in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a provincial police source said.
In one incident, a man and his wife were killed when a roadside bomb went off near their vehicle outside the ethnically-mixed town of Khanaqin, near the border with Iran, Major Alaa al-Sa'di told Xinhua.
Separately, five soldiers were wounded when several mortar rounds landed at an army base near the ethnically-mixed town of Qara-Tappa, in north of the provincial capital Baquba, which located some 65km northeast of Baghdad, Sa'di said.
The areas of the two incidents are part of disputed areas claimed by both Baghdad government and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.
The Kurds in the region consider the northern Kirkuk province and parts of Nineveh, Diyala and Salahudin provinces as disputed areas and want them to be incorporated into their region, a move fiercely opposed by the Arabs, Turkomans and the central government in Baghdad.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack in the areas where the two ethnically-mixed towns, which also suffer from attacks by remnants of Daesh terrorists.
Daesh has been regrouping in rugged areas in the eastern part of Diyala, as well as in Himreen mountainous area in northern the province, and carries out attacks against civilians and Iraqi forces from time to time.