A U.S. soldier on foot patrol was killed in a roadside bomb blast in southern Baghdad on Tuesday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

A soldier, assigned to the Multinational Division-Baghdad, was killed at about 7:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) when the blast took place, the statement said.

The name of the killed soldier was withheld pending notification of next of kin, it said.

The latest death brought the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq to at least 2,442 since the U.S. invasion of the oil-rich Arab country in March 2003, according to media tally.

Source: Xinhua