Bombs kill 8 U.S. troops, journalist in Iraq

By Dean Yates and Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Eight American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Sunday, including six who died along with a European journalist in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Earlier, a car bomb killed 35 people and wounded 80 next to a crowded market in a Shi'ite district of Baghdad which has been a repeated target of attacks blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

They were among the bloodiest incidents of violence on a day when nearly 100 people were either killed or found dead.

The U.S. military said in a statement that the six soldiers and the journalist were killed in volatile Diyala province when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle.

U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said the journalist was European and worked for a news organisation that did not have a permanent presence in Baghdad. He declined to give more information.

Dozens of foreign reporters have been embedding with U.S. military units during a U.S.-backed security crackdown in and around Baghdad that began in February.

The offensive is seen as a last-ditch attempt to halt Iraq's slide into all-out civil war between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs who were dominant under Saddam Hussein.

The attack in Diyala was one of the most lethal single strikes against U.S. forces in months. The U.S. military recently sent around 1,000 reinforcements to fight entrenched al Qaeda militants and Sunni Arab insurgents in the province.