Bomb attacks kill 4 US, 2 Iraqi soldiers

The attack happened shortly after midday as the convoy was leaving a main Green Zone exit near the Mansour district of western Baghdad. Police said the car blew up as a commando unit was passing, spraying shrapnel across a wide area.

The sound of the blast echoed across the city.

Three US soldiers were killed and eight wounded Monday in a bomb attack in Iraq, the US military said.

"At approximately 8:00 am (0500 GMT) on February 21, three US soldiers were killed and eight were wounded when an IED (improvised explosive device) detonated during a medical evacuation of a soldier," a statement said.

"The soldier was injured in a convoy accident caused by a civilian vehicle," it added, without specifying where the attack took place.

"A marine assigned to I Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in action yesterday, while conducting security and stability operations in the Al-Anbar province," a statement said.

The death brings to 1,472 the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion of March 2003.

US and Iraqi forces and officials have frequently been attacked at or near entrances to the Green Zone, a huge walled and tightly protected compound on the west back of the Tigris river in the center of the city.

In the three weeks since Iraq's landmark elections, at least 100 members of Iraq's security forces have been killed in suicide bombings and other attacks, while scores have been wounded.

Insurgents have attacked Iraqi police and guards in an effort to set back US attempts to create a viable local security force, and because the Iraqi units are less well defended and less well armed than American soldiers.