Gunmen blasted their way into government offices in central Iraq on Tuesday with two car bombs and suicide blasts that killed seven people and mirrored a March raid claimed by Al-Qaeda.

Militants involved in the attack in Diyala's provincial capital of Baquba exchanged fire with Iraqi security forces, holding them at bay, and took hostages in the siege that lasted nearly three hours.

The gunbattle ended when Iraqi security forces took control of the building with US military assistance.

Large numbers of Iraqi police and soldiers were deployed to the scene, while military helicopters hovered overhead and periodically fired on the building during the siege, an AFP reporter said.

The attack, in which dozens of people were wounded, raises concerns over the capabilities of Iraq's forces to maintain stability in the country on their own, just months before US soldiers must leave under a bilateral security pact.

Major Angela Funaro, a US military spokeswoman, said the army helped with the initial search of the government building, aided in forming a security perimeter, and used American helicopters to provide aerial information.

She added that several "tactical US vehicles" were in the area as part of a routine convoy, and noted that American helicopters "did not fire upon individuals or targets on the ground."

Tuesday's attack saw insurgents set off two car bombs against the perimeter wall of the provincial government compound at about 9:30 am (0630 GMT), before the militants stormed it, and set off twin suicide blasts inside the building itself.

Iraqi security forces then surrounded the compound and imposed a city-wide curfew, with security officials only reporting the mayhem over at around 12:20 pm (0920 GMT).

An official in Diyala's security command centre said seven people were killed and 35 wounded, while an interior ministry official in Baghdad put the toll at eight killed and 27 wounded.

Among the dead were four policemen, according to Ahmed Alwan, a doctor at Baquba's main hospital.

"Special forces from police and army managed to end the raid," Iraqi army spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.

Another security official had initially said dozens of gunmen took part in the raid, but Baquba police later said as few as five may have been involved.

The city's security forces said after the incident was over that six insurgents were involved, and all were killed. A witness said he had seen seven gunmen.

"I saw seven armed men inside the building myself, but I could also hear gunfire in other places as well," said Saleh al-Umawi, a journalist who saw the attack.

"Some of them were dressed in normal civilian clothes, and others were dressed in black and had their faces covered," he said.

Tuesday's violence closely mirrored a March 29 attack, claimed by Al-Qaeda, on provincial government offices in Tikrit that left 58 people dead.

That attack saw gunmen swarm the Salaheddin province headquarters after a suicide bomber cleared the way. Security reinforcements which arrived 20 minutes later were met by a car bomb, and for more than five hours, the gunmen held off security forces.

Diyala province, which is majority Sunni but with a substantial Shiite population, lies north of Baghdad and was a stronghold of Al-Qaeda during the peak of sectarian violence in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

Unrest has declined in the province and nationwide since that time, but Diyala remains one of Iraq's most dangerous regions.

Attacks have been on the rise, however, since the beginning of the year, according to private security firm AKE Group.

It said last week that violent incidents averaged more than 10 per day in May, up from four-to-five daily attacks in January.

Some 45,000 US troops remain stationed in Iraq, but must all withdraw by the end of the year. American officials have been pressing their counterparts in Baghdad to decide quickly whether or not to extend the military presence beyond year-end.

The issue is complicated by bickering within Iraq's national unity government, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki still having not appointed ministers of defence and interior since elections 16 months ago.

Meanwhile in the capital on Tuesday, an army brigadier general and the legal director of Baghdad's provincial government were shot dead in separate assassinations, the interior ministry official said.

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