The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Baghdad

Eight people were killed and another 15 wounded in violence around Iraq on Saturday, most of them police and members of neighbourhood anti-Al-Qaeda groups, security forces said.

Separately, two children were killed when a fragmentation bomb left over from the war that unseated Iraqi president Saddam Hussein exploded as they played football in a garden in the city of Karbala, south of the capital, police spokesman Rahman Mashawi said.

Two members of an Awakening, or anti-Qaeda group, were killed in Baghdad's Adhamiya district, which had recently been cleared of Al-Qaeda forces, security force said. Another 18 people were wounded when a bomb targeted the group's premises.

In the Dora district, meanwhile, two members of the self-defence group there were wounded by gunfire, police said.

Meanwhile, in the northern province of Nineveh, insurgents killed a US soldier with small arms fire on Friday, the military said.

The death brought to at least 3,890 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

As-Sahwa, or Awakening, groups have sprung up across Iraq, comprising mainly Sunni tribal leaders who have accepted money from the US military in return for confronting Al-Qaeda militants who attack civilians.