Seven people from one family were killed in a mortar attack on a village in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala on Saturday, a provincial police source said.

The attack occurred at dawn when several mortar rounds landed on a Shiite village near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Women and children were among the dead by the blasts that also destroyed a house in the village, the source said.

Violence and sectarian tensions have been running high in the past few months between Sunni and Shiite communities in the volatile province of Diyala, as they accuse each other of supporting extremists and militiamen.

Diyala province, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the border in east of the country, has been a volatile area since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 despite repeated military operations against the militant groups.