A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi provincial elections candidate and three other people north of Baghdad on Sunday, bringing the number of candidates killed in attacks to 14, officials said. Najm al-Harbi was on travelling to Baquba on a highway in Diyala province in his personal vehicle when the bomb exploded, killing him, two of his brothers and a bodyguard, a police lieutenant colonel and a doctor said. An official from Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak's office confirmed Harbi's death, and said he was the head of the deputy premier's list in Diyala province.

Bomb attacks on Sunni Muslim worshippers in Baghdad and north of the Iraqi capital killed 12 people on Friday, officials said, the latest in an uptick in violence ahead of provincial polls next week. In the deadliest single blast, a roadside bomb struck after prayers at the Omar bin Abdul Aziz mosque, in the town of Kanaan in restive Diyala province, a police colonel and a doctor said. Overall, 12 people were killed and 30 others wounded, the sources said.

A total of 20 people were killed and 54 others wounded Saturday when a suicide bombing struck a rally of an election campaign in the city of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province in eastern Iraq, a provincial police source told Xinhua. The attack occurred around noon when a suicide bomber blew up his explosive vest at a rally of the election campaign of Muthanna al-Jourani, a candidate for the secular bloc of Iraqia, in Baquba, some 65 km northeast of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source said on condition of anonymity. "Our reports said that 20 people were killed and 54 wo

The governor of Iraq's restive Diyala province was wounded in a suicide car bombing on Saturday, while a provincial elections candidate was killed in another attack, police and a doctors said. The suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at Governor Omar al-Humairi's house in Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, wounding him, killing two of his guards and injuring six more, a police lieutenant colonel and a doctor said. Humairi, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, became governor of Diyala, a province that suffers frequent attacks by militants, in September.