The violence in restive Diyala province comes with months to go before US troops must withdraw, and as a series of American officials visited Baghdad to press Iraqi leaders to decide whether or not they want an extended US military presence.

Early on Friday, gunmen entered the home of Basheer Mutlak, the imam of the Al-Sumaidaie mosque in the village of Imam Waiss, and killed him, his wife and his daughter, an Iraqi army colonel in the Diyala security command centre said.

"All of them were killed by bullets," said Ahmed Alwan, a doctor at the main hospital in provincial capital Baquba. He said Mutlak was 52, his wife was 42 and their daughter 11.

In a separate incident in the town of Buhruz, also in Diyala, four Sunni brothers aged between 20 and 35 were shot dead by gunmen wearing police uniform, according to an Iraqi army officer who asked not to be identified.

The attackers stormed the family's home at around 4:00 am (0100 GMT), separated the men from their wives, sisters and mother, gathered them in a room and shot them dead before fleeing the scene.

Friday's violence came just hours after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of Shiite worshippers in the town of Baladruz, killing 10 pilgrims and wounding 30 others, according to a colonel in Diyala operations command and a doctor at the town's hospital.

All of the casualties from Thursday's blast, which occurred at around 8:15 pm (1715 GMT), were men.

The attacks raise the spectre of renewed sectarian violence in Iraq, which suffered from widespread intercommunal bloodshed in 2006 and 2007 that left tens of thousands dead.

Violence has since declined dramatically since then, but attacks remain common, especially in Diyala.

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