A suicide bomber blew up a car Thursday south of Kirkuk, killing two Iraqi soldiers and three bystanders, while parliament negotiators tried to come up with a Sunni Arab candidate to serve as speaker of the newly elected National Assembly.

The explosion in Tuz Khormato, 88 kilometers south of Kirkuk, injured at least 16 people, including eight soldiers, said Sarhad Qader, a police official. The blast occurred near an Iraqi Army checkpoint guarding a Shiite shrine where pilgrims had gathered to celebrate a major religious festival.

Thursday's holiday marks the end of a 40-day mourning period for one of Shiites' most important saints, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, Imam Hussein, who was killed in a seventh-century battle.

Officials have been on the alert for attacks targeting Shiite Muslims during the festival, which draws people to shrines across Iraq. The biggest gathering is in Karbala, where hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims visited two holy shrines Thursday.

On Wednesday, gunmen fired on pilgrims in southern Iraq, killing one person. Two days earlier, two separate attacks on pilgrims left four dead.

Also Thursday, a roadside bomb injured six policemen on patrol and a bystander in the southern city of Basra, police official Lt. Col. Karim Al-Zubaidi said.

The US military announced that a US soldier had died from injuries he sustained during a clash in northern Mosul. The soldier was among several people injured Wednesday during a routine check of vehicles, Lt. Col. Andre Lance said.

Several US soldiers tried to approach a taxi, and gunmen inside opened fire, Lance said. The soldiers returned fire, killing the assailants, and the taxi exploded, likely because it was carrying explosives, Lance said.

The soldiers then came under fire again and several were injured, including the soldier who later died, Lance said. He added that two civilians were killed, but Iraqi police said six civilians died.
 
As of Wednesday, at least 1,529 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

(Shenzhen Daily via agencies April 1, 2005)