Bombs killed a U.S. soldier and seven Iraqis on Monday as politicians haggled over key posts in the new Cabinet, officials said. Another American died the day before in northern Iraq, according to a U.S. statement.

Iraqi soldiers and civilians gather at the site of the explosion following a car bomb attack, Monday, May 8, 2006. A car bomb exploded targeting a police patrol wounding several pedestrians. [AP]

Monday's worst attack occurred when a bomb exploded in a car parked near an Iraqi court in central Baghdad, killing five Iraqi civilians and wounding 10, said police Lt. Col. Falah Mohamadawi.

In eastern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded during morning rush hour near a police patrol on Palestine street in eastern Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding 12 Iraqis: five policemen and seven civilians, said police Lt. Ahmed Qassim.

Southeast of the capital, a U.S. military convoy was hit by a roadside bomb at about 11:10 a.m., damaging one vehicle and killing a U.S. army soldier riding in it, the military said.

On Sunday, another American soldier was killed and one wounded near Tal Afar while U.S. troops were helping Iraqi forces attack a building where insurgents were firing at civilians and soldiers, the U.S. command said.

Tal Afar is 260 miles northwest of Baghdad and about 95 miles east of the Syrian border.

President Bush had cited Tal Afar as a success story in U.S. and Iraqi efforts to suppress the insurgency.

The two American fatalities raised to at least 2,421 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

On Saturday, a chemical weapons expert for a major Islamic extremist group was killed by security forces in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials said. Ali Wali, a member of Ansar al-Islam, died during a raid on a suspected militant safe house in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, the U.S. command said.

Wali's body was recovered from the scene by civilians and later identified at a morgue, the officials said. Iraq's government described him as the top official in charge of training fighters; planning suicide attacks, kidnappings, ambushes; and manufacturing explosives for Ansar al-Islam, a mostly Kurdish insurgent group. In addition to toxins and poisons, Wali also was an expert in the use of artillery, tanks and anti-aircraft weapons, the U.S. command said.