BAQUBA, Iraq, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were wounded in separate attacks and seven others detained in Iraq's volatile province of Diyala northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, a provincial police source said.

    Two Iraqi soldiers were wounded when insurgents attacked their vehicles with small arms fire while they were patrolling an area near a village, located some 55 km north of the provincial capital city of Baquba, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    Iraqi security forces immediately cordoned off the scene and detained two suspects for interrogation, the source said.

    In separate incident, three people were wounded in gunfire erupted as the result of a dispute between tribesmen in a village west of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, the source added.

    Also in the province, two members of an Awakening Council paramilitary group were wounded when gunmen opened fire on them at a checkpoint in the Edhiem area in northwestern Diyala, the source said.

    Iraqi security forces and the government-backed group members, who used to fight al-Qaida militants in Iraq, sealed off the area and detained three suspects for interrogation, he said.

    Meanwhile, an Iraqi and U.S. joint force searched the town of Abu Sieda, some 20 km northeast of Baquba, and detained two wanted militiamen, the source said.

    Another Iraqi and U.S. joint force conducted a search operation early in the morning in the Shiftah area in central Baquba, the source said without providing further details.

    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 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 despite repeated U.S. and Iraqi military operations against them.

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