BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide car bomber blasted a police checkpoint outside the courthouse in

BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide car bomber blasted a police checkpoint outside the courthouse in Ramadi on Wednesday, killing up to six people and wounding as many as 22 in the first such attack in months in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold.

Also Wednesday, the U.S. military reported that an American soldier and an Iraqi interpreter were killed in a bombing in east Baghdad — another sign of the lingering dangers in Iraq despite the recent downturn in violence.

The suicide bomber struck at midmorning, killing three policemen and three civilians and wounding 13, according to Col. Jubair Rashid Naief, a provincial police official. The U.S. military said four people died, including the bomber, and 22 were wounded.

Suicide bombings, ambushes and killings used to be a daily feature of life in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, until Sunni tribesmen turned against al-Qaida in Iraq and helped American forces drive the extremists from the city.

Residents said Wednesday’s attack was the biggest in the city since Sept. 13, when the leader of the Sunni revolt, Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, and two bodyguards were killed by a bomb planted near his home.

The American soldier and Iraqi interpreter died Tuesday during a blast as their patrol was returning to base, the U.S. command said. Three Americans were also wounded, the military said.

At least 3,874 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

A U.S. statement said the blast was from an “explosively formed penetrator,” a lethal type of roadside bomb that the American military believes is supplied to Shiite militias by Iran — a charge the Iranians deny.