Suicide Bomber Kills U.S. Soldier, 6 Iraqis

A suicide bomber’s car full of mortar rounds detonated near an entrance to the fortified Green Zone on Monday, killing a U.S. soldier and six Iraqis in one of a string of insurgent attacks in which more than a dozen other Iraqis also died.

The bomber drove toward a U.S.-Iraqi checkpoint at an entrance to the sector, where government offices and the U.S. Embassy sit behind a maze of blast walls and guard posts.

Iraqi police opened fire as the car approached, and it exploded. The car was packed with 11 mortar rounds and 60 pounds of explosives, Sgt. 1st Class David Abrams said.

A U.S. soldier was killed in the blast, the military said. Three Iraqi policemen and three Iraqi civilians were also killed, Capt. Qassim Hussein said.

Also in the capital, gunmen opened fire on a convoy carrying delegates from the Arab League during the organization’s first visit to Iraq since President Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003. The league has met resistance from Shiite and Kurdish leaders as it tries to piece together a reconciliation conference with Sunnis. No one in the delegation was hurt, but two police in the convoy reportedly were killed.

The violence came five days ahead of Iraq’s key vote on a new constitution, which Kurds and the majority Shiites largely support and the Sunni minority rejects. Sunnis are campaigning to defeat the charter at the polls, though officials from all sides have been trying up to the last minute to decide on changes to the constitution to swing Sunni support.

Whether the constitution passes or fails, Iraq is due to hold elections for a new parliament Dec. 15. There was little sign that Sunnis might be softening their hostility toward the charter.

This resistance held despite entreaties from Shiite and Kurdish leaders, the United Nations and, in at least one case, an audience with the American ambassador.

“The ambassador has been working with the three different groups, trying to get a wider buy-in on the constitution, working on the language,” a U.S. Embassy official said.

In other violence, four policemen were killed in shootings in Baghdad. In Kirkuk, a city 150 miles north of the capital, four Iraqi soldiers were killed in two roadside bomb attacks, police said.

Farther north, two Sunni political leaders, an Iraqi soldier and an Iraqi policeman died in separate drive-by shootings in Mosul, officials said.

A roadside bomb blast killed an Iraqi policeman in the city of Fallouja, west of Baghdad.