Nine Iraqi soldiers were killed and 15 people were wounded when a suicide bomber rammed his car into an Iraqi army checkpoint this morning.
The attack occurred in the town of Khalis, 80 kilometres north of Baghdad, in the Diyala province.
It was the third bombing causing multiple casualties this week in Diyala, which has a mixed population of Sunni Arabs and Shias. US and Iraqi forces are battling entrenched insurgents and al-Qaeda militants there.
In northern Iraq, at least three people were killed and 13 wounded in three separate blasts in a town near Mosul, 390 kilometres north of Baghdad , said a local official.
Two truck bombs and a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt targeted Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani's Democratic Party of Kurdistan and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, the official said.
Tens of thousands of US and Iraqi forces have been deployed in Baghdad since February as part of a security crackdown. That crackdown in the capital has prompted insurgents to focus their attacks more on provinces outside the capital.