At least eight people were killed and 13 others were wounded in a bomb attack on a street in a predominantly Shia area southeast of Baghdad today.
The blast, which occurred at 7:30 a.m. in Jisr Diyala, targeted restaurants frequented by government employees and construction workers.
Two police officers and two women were among the wounded, the officials said.
Last Wednesday, eight people were killed and 24 were injured when a bomb struck the same area, which is about 10 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the US military announced the death of a soldier killed during small arms fire while conducting operations in the Salahuddin province.
The Multi-National Division-North soldier, whose name was withheld pending notification of relatives, died Thursday in the predominantly Sunni province north of Baghdad, the military said in a brief statement. It released no further details.
Yesterday, an aide for radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warned the leader could end a ban on his militia's activities because of rising anger over US and Iraqi raids against his followers. Al-Sadr is concerned about increased clashes between rival factions in the mainly Shiite south, according to the aide.
His call in August for a six-month cease-fire has been credited with a sharp drop in the number of bullet-riddled bodies that turn up on the streets of Iraq and are believed to be victims of Shia death squads.
Baghdad police found three people slain execution-style and bearing signs of torture on Friday, compared with the dozens often found on a typical day before al-Sadr's declaration. The morgue in the southern city of Kut received two bodies, including one pulled from the Tigris River.
The US welcomed al-Sadr's cease-fire declaration but has continued to target what it says are Iranian-backed breakaway factions of his Mahdi Army militia, and appears to have escalated the campaign in recent weeks.