A US soldier was killed in a suicide car bombing near a checkpoint outside the Green Zone in central Baghdad, the US military said on Monday.

"A soldier, assigned to Task Force Baghdad, was killed when a suicide bomber blew up a car bomb outside a checkpoint near the Green Zone on Oct. 10," the military said in a statement.

An Iraqi soldier and a translator were also wounded and evacuated to a military medical facility for treatment, it said, quoting initial reports as saying.

The name of the killed soldier was being withheld pending notification of next of kin, the statement said.

Earlier, an Iraqi Interior Ministry source told Xinhua that three police commandos were killed and five civilians wounded when a suicide car bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a checkpoint near an entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government offices and foreign embassies.

About 1,950 US servicemen have been killed in Iraq since the US- led invasion in March 2003.

Source: Xinhua