BAGHDAD, July 17: Gunmen dressed in Iraqi military uniforms stormed a village in the restive Iraqi province of Diyala northeast of Baghdad overnight and murdered 29 people, security officials said on Tuesday.

And insurgents continued to carry out attacks in the capital, setting off two car bombs in Baghdad, including one near the Iranian embassy which killed four people and wounded two more, they said.

Armed men stormed Duwailiyah village and killed men, women and children, Colonel Raghib Rawi al-Omaili, spokesman for the Iraqi military in Diyala said.

“Twenty-nine villagers were killed and four were wounded in the terrorist attack on the village of Duwailiyah,” he said, adding that the victims included women and children.

“The gunmen were wearing Iraqi military uniforms to confuse the victims.” The attack was grimly reminiscent of a similar assault in May in the remote village of Qara Lus in the same province, when gunmen disguised as soldiers dragged 16 villagers from their homes and shot them dead.

Diyala, the second most dangerous region in Iraq after Baghdad, is currently the target of a major US-led operation focused largely on the provincial capital of Baquba.

But as troops have pushed through the city, militants appear to have fled to the hinterlands, carrying out blistering attacks against remote towns and villages.

Another suicide car bombing of an Iraqi army patrol in the upscale central Zayuna neighbourhood killed seven people and wounded eight, a medic said.

—AFP