Five insurgents were killed in their clashes with an Iraqi police patrol on Tuesday in the city of Baquba, 60 km north east of Baghdad, a provincial police source said.

"The clashes broke out when insurgents attacked an Iraqi police patrol in Baquba in the morning," said the source from the media office of Diyala province where the Baquba located.

The attack resulted in the killing of five of the attackers, he added.

In separate incident, the source said that eleven Shiite pilgrims and 38 others wounded when a homemade bomb detonated in downtown of Khanaqin, some 120 km northeast of Baghdad near the Iranian border.

The pilgrims were gathering in the town to perform the rituals of Ashura, the holiest day on the Shiite Islamic calendar, which is a commemoration of the 7th-century death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

Source: Xinhua