The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Baghdad

At least 19 people including a US doldier were killed in separate incidents in Iraq.s

The U.S. military says an American soldier has been killed by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad.

An improvised explosive device struck the soldier's vehicle during operations on Wednesday, the military said.

Thursday's announcement raises to 18 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Sunday.

Separate missile attacks by U.S. helicopters on Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood left five people dead injured four injured, Iraqi police said Thursday.

The U.S. military said four gunmen were killed late Wednesday by Hellfire missiles targeting a group of men who firing at troops putting up concrete barriers around a checkpoint.

However, police who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said two of those killed in the attack were brothers aged seven and nine.

In a separate incident, police said a man was killed and four injured when missiles hit a building in Sadr City on Thursday morning.

Sadr City is a principal stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Government troops supported by the U.S. military have been fighting to gain control of the district of 2.5 million people for the past 10 days.

AFP report aqdds: Fierce clashes and mortar attacks in Baghdad's Shiite bastion of Sadr City killed 13 people on Wednesday as Iraq marked the fifth anniversary of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi officials said three mortar rounds slammed into Sadr City, the east Baghdad stronghold of anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, killing at least seven people and wounding 24.

One of the three rounds struck the rooftop of a house where a family was having breakfast, killing an adult and two children.