12 killed in bomb attacks in Iraq

Twelve people were killed and 27 injured in separate bomb attacks in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala Tuesday, police said.

In one attack, five people were killed and 13 were wounded when a car bomb detonated near a coffee shop in a village near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, reports Xinhua.

In a separate incident, three people were killed and five wounded in a roadside bomb explosion near their car in Baquba's eastern suburb of Bawiyah.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb went off at a marketplace 30 km northeast of Baquba, killing four people and wounding nine.

Diyala province, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border, has long been a volatile area since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 despite repeated military operations against militant groups.

Iraq is witnessing its worst eruption of violence in recent years, which raises fears that the country is sliding back to the full-blown civil conflict that peaked in 2006 and 2007 when monthly death toll sometimes exceeded 3,000.