IRAQ 3 U.S. troops die; separate bomb kills 26 villagers

Meanwhile, three more American soldiers died in two roadside bombings.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A bomb hidden in a truck loaded with dates exploded Saturday evening in the center of a Shiite farming village northeast of Baghdad, killing 26 people and injuring at least 34. Three American soldiers died in separate bombings in Baghdad and northern Iraq.
In the western part of the country, U.S. Marines said they killed 10 extremists Saturday in villages near the Syrian border, where Air Force jets blasted a suspected militant safe house the day before. U.S. officials said an Al-Qaida official from Saudi Arabia may have been killed in the airstrike.
The surge in violence occurred as Iraqi political blocs unveiled their lists of candidates for Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, which the United States and its coalition partners hope will help restore enough stability that they can begin sending home their forces next year.
The bomb in the Shiite village of Huweder, about 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, exploded as villagers were heading to the mosque for prayers or outdoors in the cool evening breeze to break the daylong fast they observe during the holy month of Ramadan.
"It felt as if the earth was shaking underneath our feet," said Hussein Mouwaffaq, whose brother Qahtan was killed in the blast. "The street was strewn with dates. Many people were killed and injured."
Police Lt. Ahmed Abdul Wahab, who gave the casualty figure, said the number of deaths could increase because several survivors were critically wounded. The village is in a religiously mixed area plagued by suicide attacks, roadside bombs and armed assaults on police checkpoints.
Al-Qaida link?
Shiite civilians are frequent targets of Sunni extremists including Iraq's most feared terror group, Al-Qaida in Iraq, which considers members of the majority religious community to be heretics and American collaborators. Iraq's security services are staffed mainly by Shiites and Kurds.
At the hospital in nearby Baqouba, seriously wounded victims lay on stretchers on a blood-smeared floor as doctors and nurses in bloodstained white coats scurried about, trying to cope. Distraught relatives held intravenous bottles beside their loved ones' beds.
On one bed a child lay motionless with a bandage covering his knee, as a man sobbed next to him. A badly burned man writhed in agony on a stretcher as blood ran down his burned skin.
"We ask the terrorists and the so-called mujahedeen: The people who were killed, what did they do?" said Iraqi army Capt. Ahmed Jassim, crying.
Latest American deaths
Two American soldiers were killed Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in southern Baghdad, the U.S. command said. The third soldier died in a roadside bombing earlier Saturday near Beiji, 155 miles north of the capital, the military said. Four soldiers were wounded in the Beiji blast.
Their deaths raised to at least eight the number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq since Thursday. At least 2,015 U.S. troops have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press.