Bomb kills six at council meeting in Baghdad's Sadr City

A suicide bomber killed six Iraqis at a council meeting in the Baghdad stronghold of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, police said.

Police said US soldiers were at the meeting in Sadr City. They said there had been casualties among the soldiers.

A US military spokesman said he could confirm a blast had occurred but had no further details.

Seven civilians were wounded, police said.

Mahmud al-Zamili, a member of Sadr City's local council, said the explosion went off inside the room of the deputy head of the council.

Police said the deputy was among the wounded.

A Reuters photographer said US and Iraqi forces had cordoned off the council office in Sadr City, bastion of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, where battles between gunmen and security forces raged for weeks until a truce took effect in May.

The incident came a day after a gunman killed two US soldiers and wounded three others as they left a council building southeast of Baghdad.

In that incident, Iraqi security officials said a local official in the town of Madaen turned his gun on U.S. soldiers who had gone to visit him.

The US military said the soldiers had just attended a council meeting in the town when they were ambushed. The identity of the attacker was unclear, the military said.