BAGHDAD (Reuters/AFP) - A bomb struck a convoy of US officials and civilian contractors on a visit to a construction site in western Iraq, killing a soldier and two US government employees, officials said on Tuesday. A US military statement said two other civilians working for the US Department of Defense were wounded in Mondays attack near Falluja, 50 km west of Baghdad. One of the dead civilians worked for the Department of Defense, and the other was identified by the US embassy as State Department employee Terrence Barnich. The casualties nationalities were not given. An Iraqi court on Tuesday condemned eight Shia militia leaders to death on a range of terrorism charges including murder and planting bombs. Diwaniyah criminal court passed the death sentence against the heads of 'special groups under Article 4 of the law on terrorism, said Brigadier General Abdul Aziz al-Salhi, a police spokesman in the town south of Baghdad. The general said the eight Shia militia chiefs were convicted of murder, robbery, planting homemade bombs and firing rockets in Diwaniyah province. The US military and Iraqi authorities use the term special groups to refer to extremist Shia militias allegedly trained, armed and financed in neighbouring Iran, which denies the charges. The same court in Diwaniyah handed down the death sentence to two senior special group militants in April. The US command considers the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr as part of the groups, which the American military said on Sunday have reduced their attacks in Iraq. Most attacks this year have been blamed on Sunni extremists of Al-Qaeda.