At least 17 people were killed and 65 others wounded in a double bomb attacks targeting a Kurdish party office and a security headquarters in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala on Sunday, a provincial police source said.

The attack occurred in the morning when a booby-trapped car exploded at a parking lot outside the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and a nearby Kurdish security headquarters in the city of Jalawlaa, some 130 km northeast of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Minutes later a suicide bomber blew up his explosive vest at a crowd of security personnel, party members and civilians who gathered on the site of the first blast, the source said.

Four Kurdish security officers were among the killed, while many of the wounded were security members and party officials, the source added. He said the powerful blasts also caused severe damages to the security headquarters and the PUK office, which is headed by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

The ethnically mixed city of Jalawlaa is part of disputed areas between the Kurds, who want to annex it to their semi-autonomous region and Baghdad government.

The toll could rise as ambulances, police and civilian vehicles evacuated the casualties to different hospitals and medical centers in the city, the source said.

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

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