A female suicide bomber blew herself up at a popular market in Diyala province on Wednesday, killing at least eight people and wounding at least three others, a provincial police source said.

The women wearing an explosive vest blew herself up at a crowded market in a predominantly Shiite town of Khan Bani Saad, south of the provincial capital of Baquba, inflicting the casualties, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The volatile province of Diyala, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border, has long been the hot bed of insurgency and sectarian violence since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.