Roadside bomb hits US convoy in Iraq

Two soldiers wounded in Iraq as a result of a roadside bomb explosion. Another attack killed a head of a provincial concil. The bomb struck the U.S. military convoy Thursday morning in eastern Baghdad, an official said.

The blast caused a Humvee to slide off the road and it flipped over into a canal, said Sgt. 1st Class David Abrams, a spokesman for Task Force Baghdad. The wounded soldiers were evacuated for treatment, reports the AP.

The attack occurred at about 7:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) in the Sadr City neighborhood.

Separately, gunmen killed the head of Salahuddin's provincial council, police said Thursday. Ali Ghalib Ibrahim was shot Wednesday evening as he was driving in the provincial capital, Tikrit, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad.

On Wednesday, gunmen killed four policemen and wounded at least nine more in separate attacks. Also Wednesday, a member of the biggest Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade, was killed in an ambush in south Baghdad. An Iraqi civilian who had been "cooperative" with the Americans was shot dead on his way to work north of Baghdad near Tarmiya.

The latest attacks occurred days after two diplomats from Muslim countries were ambushed in suspected kidnap attempts in Baghdad. Bahrain's top envoy in Baghdad was wounded, and Pakistani ambassador wasn’t hurt during an attempt of kidnapping Tuesday. Saturday night new Egypt's envoy to Baghdad was kidnapped in the Iraqi capital, and an al-Qaida group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi posted his ID cards and threatened to kill the diplomat in a statement on its Web-site.

Violent attacks against Arab envoys aimed to "scare the other diplomatic missions so that they won't expand their presence in Iraq," Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kuba believes.