June 11 (Reuters) – A suicide car bomb targeting a U.S. military patrol in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province on Friday killed at least four people and wounded 26, a police source said.

The U.S. military did not immediately respond to requests for confirmation of U.S. casualties.

The police source said four Iraqi policemen were killed when a car packed with explosives detonated alongside the U.S. vehicles and an Iraqi police patrol near a market in the town of Jalawla, 115 km (70 miles) northeast of Baghdad.

Overall violence in Iraq has dropped sharply since the height of sectarian warfare in 2006-07, but an inconclusive March parliamentary election has fuelled a spike in bloodshed over the past two months.

In Baghdad on Friday, a roadside bomb killed two civilians and wounded nine others in the southern Doura district, police said. A car bomb in the capital late on Thursday killed four people and wounded 10.

U.S. forces have pulled out of Iraqi cities and are working to formally end combat operations by Sept. 1, cutting the U.S. military force from just under 90,000 to 50,000.

But U.S. military vehicles have been targeted on several occasions in recent days, without U.S. casualties.

On Wednesday, two civilians died when a suicide bomber on a motorcycle rammed into a U.S. army patrol near the small town of Muqdadiya, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad. (Reporting by Muhanad Mohammed; Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Jon Boyle)