A U.S. marine, together with an Iraqi soldier and three civilians from one family, were killed when a car bomb went off near the flash point city of Fallujah on Friday, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

"A homicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near the city of Fallujah on March 10," the military said in a statement.

"Three members of an Iraqi family, one soldier from the Iraqi Army, and one U.S. Marine were killed by the blast," the statement said.

The name of the killed U.S. marine will be released by the Department of Defense after next-of-kin notification, it added.

On Friday, the local police in Fallujah told Xinhua that a suicide car bomber blew himself up near a joint U.S. and Iraqi military checkpoint on the highway outside the city, killing seven people and wounding five others, two of them were policemen.

Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, has long been a bastion of insurgency against the U.S. and Iraqi security forces since the U. S.-led invasion in 2003.

Source: Xinhua