At least six people were killed on Saturday when three mortar bombs hit a Shia Muslim village near the Iraqi city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

A woman and a child were among the victims, five of whom belonged to the same family, the police said, adding that the assailants might have been aiming at a nearby police station.

Sunni Muslim insurgents often target the security forces, as well as Shia civilians and Sunni tribal militiamen paid by the Shiite-led  government to combat al Qaeda-linked groups.

Violence in Iraq climbed back to its highest level in five years in 2013, when nearly 9,000 people were killed, most of them civilians, according to the United Nations.