Suicide Bomber Kills Two U.S. Soldiers, Wounds Six in Iraq

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Source: McClatchy

BAGHDAD — Two American soldiers were killed and six were wounded Friday by a car bomb north of Baghdad, wrapping up a week of renewed insurgent attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq.

The explosion in the town of Jalula in restive Diyala province, one of the last main hideouts of the group al Qaida in Iraq, also killed an Iraqi police officer and four Iraqi civilians. U.S. patrols also were attacked earlier this week in Baghdad and areas north, west and south of the capital, according to Iraqi police reports.

The American casualties Friday, along with the string of nonfatal attacks on U.S. convoys this week, interrupted a period of relative calm as American forces continue a gradual drawdown that the Obama administration plans to complete by the end of next year. A resurgence of violence by Sunni Muslim insurgents or Shiite Muslim militias could complicate that effort.

In the Jalula attack, a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol had stopped to investigate a neighborhood fight when a suicide car bomber approached and detonated before 10 a.m., according to Iraqi authorities and a local politician.

An Iraqi major in the Interior Ministry’s emergency force, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to make statements, was part of the American-Iraqi patrol, which was searching for weapons in a neighborhood where a quarrel had escalated to the use of hand grenades. He said he was stepping out of his patrol car when the explosion occurred.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/11/95735/suicide-bomber-strikes-us-iraqi.html#ixzz0qZKurkAQ