Blast targets council meeting in Baghdad's Sadr City

Police said US soldiers were at the meeting. A US military spokesman said he could confirm a blast had occurred but had no further details.

Seven civilians were wounded, police said. The dead official was a member of the council, police said.

A Reuters photographer said U.S. and Iraqi forces had cordoned off the council office in Sadr City, bastion of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, where battles between gunmen and security forces raged for weeks until a truce took effect in May.

The incident came a day after a gunman killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded three others as they left a council building southeast of Baghdad.

In that incident, Iraqi security officials said a local official in the town of Madaen turned his gun on US soldiers who had gone to visit him.

The US military said the soldiers had just attended a council meeting in the town when they were ambushed. The identity of the attacker was unclear, the military said.