U.S. soldiers shot and killed a young Iraqi girl after firing a warning shot at a woman who "appeared to be signaling to someone" along a stretch of road where several roadside bombs had recently been found, a military official said early Thursday.

Later Thursday, police said a parked car bomb had exploded in a commercial district of central Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding another 41.

The bombing took place off a bridge in Tahrir Square, a district of clothing shops just outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government, an Iraqi police official said on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to release the information. No more information was immediately available.

The shooting, which took place Wednesday afternoon, occurred in the volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad. An exact location was not given in a military statement.

The girl appeared to be "around 10 years old," said Maj. Brad Leighton, a military spokesman.

There has been an increase in the use of women as suicide bombers in Iraq.

The latest such attack occurred Monday when a female suicide bomber killed a U.S.-backed Sunni leader who formed a group to fight against al Qaeda insurgents in Diyala after his guards ushered her into the home without searching her.

Leighton, however, said preliminary reports indicated that soldiers didn't believe the woman posed a threat of being a suicide bomber, but rather "they were afraid she was signaling to someone that the convoy was going by."

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