US Soldier Killed at Green Zone Checkpoint

AP– Meanwhile 4 vehicles attack a convoy of Arab League diplomats in Iraq to lead “reconciliation” talks. Not a good sign.

In the last 15 days, at least 338 people have been killed across Iraq, including nine American soldiers who died in a series of offensives the U.S. military has been waging in western Iraq to try to knock al-Qaida militants and other insurgents off balance and prevent attacks during the referendum on the constitution.

In Monday’s worst attack, a suicide car bomb exploded near a U.S.-Iraqi checkpoint leading into the highly fortified Green Zone, where Iraq’s parliament and the U.S. Embassy are located. The blast killed a U.S. soldier, three Iraqi policemen and three civilians, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

Teacher Riyadh Qassim heard the blast from his nearby elementary school.

“A car bomb exploded. We ran out of school and saw two cars engulfed in flames, one of them a police car. Some of the policemen were in a panic,” he said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.