BAGHDAD: A US soldier has been killed in northern Iraq, the US military said on Friday, the first American service member to die in an attack here since the US announced its forces would depart by year's end.
"A US service member was killed Thursday while conducting operations in northern Iraq," the military said in a brief statement, without providing further details.
An Iraqi security source told AFP that boys attacked an American convoy in the ethnically divided oil city of Kirkuk with a thermal bomb on Thursday.
A similar bomb was used against another convoy on Friday, the source said, without specifying if it resulted in casualties.
The hand-thrown thermal bombs are especially effective against armoured vehicles.
The US military confirmed in an email that there was an attack on a convoy in Kirkuk on Friday morning, but said "there were no injuries and no damage to the vehicles."
The US soldier killed on Thursday was the first to die in an attack in Iraq since US President Barack Obama announced on October 21 that US forces would leave by the end of this year.
The last attack in Iraq that killed a US soldier was on September 29.
The latest death came on the same day that a US general said most US troops here would be out by mid-December.
"As I look at the plan, I think it's clear to me that by the time we get to about mid-December or so, the vast majority of the US forces in Iraq -- we plan to have them withdrawn from Iraq by that time," said Major General Thomas Spoehr, deputy commanding general of US forces in Iraq.
Thursday's death brings to 4,483 the number of US soldiers who have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally based on data compiled by icasualties.org.
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