Two US soldiers killed in Baghdad blast (2nd Roundup)

Aug 4, 2008, 16:50 GMT

Baghdad - Two US soldiers were killed and a third injured by a roadside bomb in the Karrade district of central Baghdad on Monday, a military spokesman said.

The incident, no further details of which were available, marks the first 'combat deaths' in August. In the previous three days, three US soldiers died and three were injured in non-combat incidents, the US military said

One of the soldiers was killed and two wounded Saturday near a US military base in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad, the military said in a statement, without giving further details. Another was killed in a vehicle accident south-west of Baghdad.

Five US soldiers have been killed since August. The lowest monthly toll of US soldiers to die in Iraq since the 2003 invasion was recorded in July when 11 lost their lives, the independent website icasualties.org reported on Friday.

Some 222 US soldiers have been killed so far this year, bringing to 4,130 the number who have died since the US-led invasion.

In other incidents, three people were killed and five injured when a bomb damaged a coffee shop popular with young people in Hillah province, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, witnesses told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. Several cars were also damaged.

The Iraqi army killed two unidentified gunmen who attacked a checkpoint at a manufacturing area west of the northeast city of Mosul, an army source told Voice of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

The Iraqi army confiscated the gunmen's vehicle and seized two Kalashnikov rifles and an RPG 7 rocket launcher.

An unidentified gunmen shot a civilian and injured another in the market area at al-Kut province, VOI reported. Police cordoned off the area in an attempt to catch the assailant, who escaped before the police arrived.