Baghdad police say a suicide car bomber has killed a prominent Shi'ite member of Iraq's parliament, along with his son and three bodyguards.
The bomber rammed his explosives-filled vehicle into a convoy carrying Dhari al-Fayadh a member of the ruling Shi'ite-dominated alliance and the oldest member of Iraq's parliament.
Elsewhere, a car bomb attack near a U.S. military base near Balad killed one U.S. soldier. And in the northern city of Kirkuk, a car bomb attack near a police convoy killed two people.
Al-Qaida in Iraq later claimed responsibility in a statement that could not be verified.
More than 1,000 U.S. troops and Iraqi soldiers have started a new offensive against insurgents along the Euphrates river valley in western Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi forces have carried out several recent offensives in the region to try to weaken the ongoing insurgency.