BAQUBA, Iraq- Up to 17 people were killed and 36 others injured in two deadly attacks in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala on Thursday, a provincial police source said.

A car bomb exploded at a crowded vegetable market in the town of Khalis near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 30 others, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Several shops, stalls and civilian cars were also damaged, the source said.

Earlier, the source put the toll at seven killed and 28 wounded.

Another attack took place in the early hours of the day, when gunmen broke into the houses of two brothers, one of them is a member of a local Awakening Council group, in the village of al- Jeel near, 20 kilometers m south of Baquba, killing eight people and wounding four others, the source added.

The Awakening Council group, or Sahwa in Arabic, consists of armed groups including some powerful anti-US Sunni insurgent groups which fought al-Qaida militant in the Sunni Arab areas after the US-led invasion of Iraq.

The attackers planted a roadside bomb on the road leading to the two houses and blew it up near a police force dispatched to the scene of the first attack, wounding two policemen, he said.

Diyala province, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border east of the country, has long been a stronghold for al-Qaida militants and other insurgent groups since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Violence and sporadic high-profile attacks raise concerns about the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces to maintain security in the country alone ahead of the December 31 deadline of US troops' withdrawal.