Five US soldiers were killed Monday in one of three suicide bombings in Baghdad and Iraq's volatile Diyala province which left a total of 11 people killed, police and witnesses said. ( dpa )
The five soldiers were killed when a bomber detonated an explosives-packed vest alongside a US army patrol in the Baghdad suburb of al-Mansur. Ten Iraqi civilians were wounded in the attack.
Earlier, at least six people including a tribal chief were killed and 22 wounded in two suicide bombings in Diyala province.
In the first attack, a female suicide bomber blew herself up outside the home of a tribal chief, who led a local police squad, known as the Awakening Council.
"A female bomber wearing an explosive vest targeted the house of Sheykh Thair Taban al-Kharkhi, the head of the tribal police unit in the town of Canan," the spokesman Shukr al-Shumari told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.
Al-Kharkhi's son and daughter and his guard were killed and two people were injured in the attack, al-Shumari said. The house was badly damaged.
But witnesses gave Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa a different account, saying Kharkhi's daughter and niece were killed while standing next to the Sheykh as the female bomber approached him outside his home.
Canan is part of Diyala's provincial capital Baquba, 60 kilometres north-east of Baghdad.
Tribal police units are formed and funded by the US military mainly in Sunni Arab areas to fight loyalists of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Female bombers have been increasingly used in carrying out suicide attacks in Iraq.
In the second attack, a suicide bomber also wearing an explosive vest blew himself up near a security checkpoint in Muqdadiyah, 45 kilometres south-east of Baquba.
Two people were killed and 20 injured, including two policemen, a security source told VOI.
Diyala has become a central stage for violence and deadly clashes between Sunni insurgents, especially from the al-Qaeda in Iraq group, and US and Iraqi troops.