Eight US soldiers were killed in two separate bomb attacks in Iraq, within the last 24 hours, staged by al-Qaeda militants, officials say.

The first attack took place in the Iraqi province of Diyala Monday, killing three US soldiers and their interpreter. The attack was announced Tuesday by the military officials, who said that another soldier was wounded when an improvised bomb exploded near their patrol in Diyala.

Also, on Monday, five other US soldiers, who were killed in a suicide attack in Mansour, Baghdad. At about 3 p.m. on Monday, a man wearing a vest packed with explosives approached the U.S. patrol, and blew himself up, killing five soldiers and wounding three others.

“Five US soldiers were killed today when their dismounted patrol was struck by a suicide bomber. Three US soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded as well,” military spokesman Lieutenant Michael Street said, according to AFP.

The two bomb attacks are blamed on the Sunni insurgent group al -Qaeda in Iraq. The Baghdad bombing was the deadliest single attack on U.S. troops in Iraq since January 28, when five soldiers were killed in a bomb and gun attack in Mosul. On September 10, eight US soldiers were killed in Baghdad.

Since the US invasion in 2003, the death toll has reached 3,979 American military, while the number of the wounded is 29,000, the Independent notes.

Yesterday, a female suicide attacker killed a Sunni Arab tribal chief outside his home in Kanaan, southeast of the provincial capital Baquba.

She told the guards she had an appointment with the tribal leader because her husband had been kidnapped and she was seeking help. When Thaer Saggban al-Kharki, the leader of an Awakening Council, came to meet her, she detonated her belt containing explosives, hidden under her robes, killing Kharki, his five-year-old niece and two of his guards.

Al-Qaeda has increasingly used women suicide bombers, children and disabled people to carry out attacks in crowded areas in Iraq, because they are less likely to be searched.