Baghdad - Two bombs exploded in a crowded market in Baquba, the capital city of Iraq's ethnically divided Diyala province, on Tuesday morning, Iraqi media reported.

"On Tuesday, an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated inside an ambulance near a popular market in downtown Baquba. Another IED blast followed in the same place, leaving a number of casualties that was not immediately known," a police spokesman told the Voices of Iraq news agency Tuesday.

Further details were not immediately known in the incident in Baquba, where Saturday's provincial council elections had passed peacefully.

Baquba, some 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, was once the most violent theatre in Iraq's civil war. For years, the city was wracked by fighting between Shiite militias, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Coalition Forces. Kurds and Arabs compete for power in the north of the Diyala province. (dpa)