BAQUBA, Iraq, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Three policemen were killed and five others injured in a car bomb explosion near their vehicle in the volatile province of Diyala in eastern Baghdad on Tuesday, a provincial police source said.

    A booby-trapped car parked on a main road in the town of Sa'diyah, some 130 km northeast of Baghdad, detonated near a passing police patrol, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    A police officer was among the killed in the attack, which also destroyed at least one police vehicle, the source said.

    Diyala province, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border east of the country, has long been astrong hold 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.