A car bomb aimed at a U.S. patrol in Baghdad Thursday killed an American soldier and least nine Iraqi civilians and wounded 26, police and military officials said, according to ap. The U.S. military said it had killed 18 militants since late Wednesday amid escalating fighting in Baghdad's Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City. The bomb went off in the morning in a crowded commercial area in eastern Baghdad, police officials said. The U.S. military said a soldier died later in the day of wounds sustained in the blast. Three women and a child were among the nine Iraqis killed in the attack, police said. The soldier's death raises to at least 4,064 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
