Attacks in central Iraq have killed at least 16 people in the latest violence in Diyala province and in an area known as the Triangle of Death.

In Tuesday's deadliest attack, armed men stormed a house in the town of Yusufiyah and killed six people, including two women, as they were ritually cleansing the body of a Sunni Arab man for his funeral, a police officer and a doctor at a nearby hospital said.

Two more people were killed and seven others were wounded in the nearby town of Latifiyah by a roadside bomb near a cafe.

Yusufiyah and Latifiyah lie within a confessionally mixed region south of Baghdad known as the Triangle of Death for the deadly violence in the area at the peak of Iraq's sectarian war.

Elsewhere, three separate car bombs near Baquba, capital of Diyala, left eight people dead and dozens wounded, security and medical officials said.

No one claimed immediate responsibility for the attacks. But coordinated car bombings and attacks on civilians and security forces are a favourite tactic of the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda.

It typically does not lay claim to attacks for several days, if at all.

Authorities have sought to tackle the country's worst unrest since 2008 with wide-ranging operations targeting fighters as well as tight traffic measures in Baghdad, but attacks have continued to rock many cities.

Al Jazeera