By Xinhua
Baghdad : A suicide bomber blew himself up in a group of US soldiers handing out toys to Iraqi children in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, killing at least three children and three troops, US and Iraqi sources said Monday.
Seven children were wounded in the blast in Baquba City, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a spokesman of the provincial operations office told Xinhua.
Late Sunday, US soldiers were handing out toys to a group of children aged 6-12 years at a football field in western Baquba, when the bomb went off, he said.
A brief US military statement said that it was a “suicide vest attack” that killed three of its soldiers in the area.
The latest deaths bring the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq to 3,870 since the US-led invasion in 2003, according to the Pentagon.