Iraqi firefighters spray water on burned cars, Saturday

Iraqi parliamentary elections are less than three weeks away, and insurgents intent on disrupting them have launched more car bomb attacks Saturday, killing at least nine people.

In central Baghdad, police say four civilians were killed when a car bomb exploded as a U.S. military convoy passed.

North of the capital, on the outskirts of Samarra, a suicide bomber drove his truck into a gas station, setting off a fiery explosion that killed at least five people and injured a dozen others.

Elsewhere, the U.S. military reports an American soldier was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in the western town of Hit.

The violence comes as more than 500 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers launched a new offensive, "Operation Tigers", against insurgents in the western city of Ramadi.

Some information for this report provided by AP and Reuters.