Iraqi bombs kill eight US troops, journalist

Eight American soldiers were yesterday killed in Iraq, including six who died along with a European journalist in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad, the US military said.

Earlier, a car bomb killed at least 35 people and wounded 80 next to a crowded market in a Shi'ite district of Baghdad which has been a repeated target of attacks blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

In a statement, the military said that the six soldiers and the journalist were killed in the volatile Diyala province, when a bomb struck their vehicle.

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 yesterday, the military said, including one in Baghdad.

US forces killed up to 10 militants and destroyed a torture room in Baghdad's Sadr City, a bastion of the Mehdi Army militia of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

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.

The car bomb, one of the worst attacks in Baghdad in weeks, exploded next to a market in Bayaa district. Markets are a favourite target of carbombers.

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 a security crackdown in Baghdad three months ago. The push, bolstered by 30,000 extra US troops expected to be in place by June 1, has reduced sectarian killings, but car bombs still plague the city.