BAGHDAD, May 6: Eight American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Sunday, including six who died along with a European journalist in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad, the US military said.
In a statement, the military said the deadliest incident took place in volatile Diyala province. It said the bomb hit a vehicle that the soldiers and the journalist were travelling in.
US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said the journalist was European and worked for a news organisation that did not have a permanent presence in Baghdad.
He declined to give more information.
Many foreign reporters have been embedding with US military units during a US-backed security crackdown in and around Baghdad that began in February.
The attack in Diyala, where the US military recently sent around 1,000 reinforcements to fight entrenched Al Qaeda militants and Sunni Arab insurgents, was one of the worst single attacks against US forces in months.
Two other US soldiers were killed in separate bomb attacks on Sunday, the military said, including one in Baghdad.
Earlier, a car bomb killed 35 people and wounded 80 next to a crowded market in a Shia district of Baghdad which has been a repeated target of attacks blamed on Al Qaeda.
Bystanders used blankets to carry the dead and wounded to pick-up trucks. The blast tore off shopfronts and destroyed cars.
“What did these innocent people do to get killed in a car bomb? Where is the government? ... Where is security? Let the government come and see this situation,” said one man, angrily gesticulating at the scene.
US and Iraqi forces launched the security crackdown in Baghdad three months ago. The push, bolstered by 30,000 extra U .S. troops expected to be in place by June 1, has reduced sectarian killings, but car bombs still plague the city.
US forces also killed up to 10 militants and destroyed a torture room in Baghdad's Sadr City.
American commanders said the predawn raid, on suspected members of a cell known for smuggling sophisticated bombs from Iran, found 150 mortar bombs in the same building as the torture room and troops destroyed them in a controlled blast.
North of the capital, two suicide car bombers attacked police positions in the city of Samarra, killing 10 people, including Samarra's police commander, officials said. They said 15 people were wounded. Most of the victims were police.
Suspected Al Qaeda militants blew up a shrine in Samarra in 2006, unleashing a wave of sectarian violence that has killed thousands and driven Iraq to the brink of civil war.—Reuters
