At least 15 people were killed across Iraq on Sunday, including seven by a bomb targeting a local leader of President Jalal Talabani's political party, officials said. The bomb exploded in the town of Qara Tappa in the restive province of Diyala outside the house of Mohammed Ramadan Eisa, a local leader of Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the town's mayor Sherwan Shukra said.
"Eisa was seriously wounded in the blast but his wife, mother-in-law, his two children, one brother and two of his guards were killed," Shukra told AFP.
Qara Tappa is 70 kilometres (43 miles) north of Baquba, the provincial capital.
"The incident occurred when all the victims were standing in front of the house. They were probably getting ready to go somewhere," Shukra said.
A local police officer said three more of Eisa's guards were wounded in the blast. In another attack in Diyala province, this time in the town of Kana'an, one civilian was killed and four were wounded when an army patrol was targeted by a roadside bomb, a police officer said.
Another civilian was killed when police clashed with "rogue" members of a local anti-Qaeda group in central Baquba, the officer added. Diyala remains one of the most dangerous provinces in Iraq, and despite several military assaults against insurgents there the region has seen sustained attacks, especially suicide bombings by women.
In Baghdad a car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded near a market, killing at least six people and wounding 14, security officials said. The explosion occurred in Baghdad's north-eastern Shiite Al-Shab neighbourhood, they said.