A female suicide bomber blew herself up near the U.S. troops in the city of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, wounding seven U.S. soldiers, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
The attack took place Tuesday when a woman wearing an explosive packed vest blew herself up near the troops, wounding the soldiers and five Iraqi civilians, the military said in a brief statement.
The wounded soldiers were taken by helicopter to a military hospital for treatment, it said, adding that the incident is under investigation.
Earlier, a provincial Iraqi security source told Xinhua that the attacker targeted a joint patrol of U.S. and Iraqi security forces on Tuesday evening.
The source put the toll at wounding nine civilians, including two children, without providing information about casualties among the U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, as the troops immediately cordoned off the area while U.S. helicopters hovered over the scene.
Diyala province was a scene of another suicide bomb attack on Tuesday, when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up at a police checkpoint on a main road outside Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad.
The attack resulted in the killing of six people, including three policemen, and wounding seven others.
Recently, the U.S. and Iraqi troops launched series of military offensives against al-Qaida militants in the province which has long been the hot bed of insurgency and sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shiite communities.
Source:Xinhua
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