Three killed in suicide car blast

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a joint US-Iraqi checkpoint in Samarra today, killing three people and wounding seven others, including four US soldiers , the military said.

One Iraqi soldier, a civilian and the suicide bomber died in the blast, said Major Neal O’Brien of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division.

Four American and three Iraqi soldiers were also wounded in the explosion and evacuated to a nearby military hospital for treatment, O’Brien said.

The attack came less than a week after American forces re-entered the city, 63 miles north of Baghdad, for the first time since May 30 as part of a peace deal brokered by tribal leaders.

Under the pact, US forces agreed to provide millions of dollars in reconstruction funds in exchange for an end to attacks on American and Iraqi troops.