Military

DATE=12/28/2003

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=IRAQ/VIOLENCE (S)

NUMBER=2-311267

BYLINE=CHALLISS McDONOUGH

DATELINE=BAGHDAD

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: A roadside bomb attack in central Baghdad has killed two Iraqi children and a U-S soldier. Correspondent Challiss McDonough reports from Baghdad the attack also wounded five other Americans, their Iraqi interpreter, and eight members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. .

TEXT: Military spokesmen say insurgents attacked a U-S military convoy with a homemade bomb on a street in the heavily populated Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad. They say the two Iraqi children were standing nearby when the bomb exploded.

The bombers struck around mid-morning. Karrada is a popular shopping area where the streets are usually packed with people during the day.

Saturday, four car bombs struck the city of Karbala, about 100-kilometers south of the capitol. The death toll from that attack is still rising, but among the dead are two Thai soldiers and four Bulgarians. At least 160 people are reported injured, many of them civilians.

Military officials are calling the Karbala attack the most coordinated assault on coalition troops in Iraq in weeks, and they believe foreign fighters, rather than Iraqis, carried it out. (SIGNED)

NEB/CEM/ALW/RAE