Suicide car bomb kills U.S. soldier in Iraq

updated 2:39 p.m. ET June 8, 2008

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomb exploded near an American patrol base Sunday in northern Iraq, killing one soldier and wounding 20 other people, the U.S. military said.

Eighteen of the wounded were American soldiers and two were Iraqi contractors working at the base in Tamim province, according to a brief statement from the military.

Tamim has a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen, with the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital.

Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir, a senior officer in the Kirkuk police department, said the car bomb targeted a U.S. patrol base in a mostly Sunni Arab residential area in Rashad, about 25 miles southwest of Kirkuk.

The suicide attacker rammed his vehicle into blast walls outside the gates of the U.S. base, Qadir said.

Earlier, the U.S. military issued a statement saying an American soldier died late Saturday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad.

The casualties' names were withheld until the families could be notified.

At least 4,094 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

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