BAGHDAD -- A bomb hidden in a truck loaded with dates exploded last night in the center of a Shi'ite farming village northeast of Baghdad, killing 26 people and wounding at least 34.
Also yesterday, three US soldiers died in separate bombings in Baghdad and in northern Iraq.
The bomb in the Shi'ite village near Baqubah, about 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, exploded as villagers were heading for prayers or going outdoors to break daylong fast they observe during the holy month of Ramadan.
''It felt as if the earth was shaking underneath our feet," said Hussein Mouwaffaq, whose brother, Qahtan, was killed in the blast. ''Many people were killed and injured."
Police Lieutenant Ahmed Abdul Wahab, who gave the casualty figure, said the number of deaths could increase because several people had been critically wounded. The village is in a religiously mixed area that has been plagued by suicide attacks, roadside bombs, and assaults on police checkpoints.
Shi'ite civilians are frequent targets of Sunni extremists, including Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Al Qaeda considers Shi'ites to be heretics and US collaborators. Iraq's security services are staffed mainly by Shi'ites and Kurds.
At the hospital in Baqubah, seriously wounded victims lay on stretchers on a blood-smeared floor as doctors and nurses in bloodstained white coats scurried about. Distraught relatives held intravenous bottles beside their loved ones' beds.
On one bed a child lay motionless with a bandage covering his knee, as a man sobbed next to him. A badly burned man wiggled in agony on a stretcher.
''We ask the terrorists and the so-called mujahiddeen: The people who were killed, what did they do?" said Captain Ahmed Jassim of the Iraqi army.
In another development, two US soldiers were killed yesterday when a bomb exploded near their vehicle in southern Baghdad, the US command said. The third soldier died in a roadside bombing earlier yesterday near Beiji, 155 miles north of the capital, the military said. Four soldiers were wounded in the Beiji blast.
Their deaths raised to at least eight the number of US service members killed in Iraq since Thursday. At least 2,015 US troops have been killed since the war started in March 2003, according to a count by the Associated Press.
In his weekly radio address yesterday, President Bush said the war in Iraq has required ''great sacrifice," but that progress is being made and that the United States must remain steadfast in its acceptance of the conflict. ''The best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and win the war on terror," he said.
''We will train Iraqi security forces and help a newly elected government meet the needs of the Iraqi people. In doing so, we will lay the foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren."