BAGHDAD -- A suicide truck bomber who concealed his explosives under tanned animal hides struck a U.S. patrol base Sunday in northern Iraq, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding 18 other Americans, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

Tamim has a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen, with the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital. Three American soldiers were killed last Wednesday by gunfire in Tamim.

Brig. Sarhat Qadir, a senior officer in the Kirkuk police department, said the bomber targeted a U.S. patrol base in a mostly Sunni Arab residential area in Rashad, about 25 miles southwest of Kirkuk.

The suicide attacker rammed his vehicle into blast walls outside the gates of the small U.S. base, located in a residential neighborhood of Sunni Arabs, Qadir said. He added that the explosives were concealed under tanned animal hides.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Colombian rebels on Sunday to lay down their weapons, unilaterally free dozens of hostages and put an end to a decades-long armed struggle against Colombia's government.

Chavez sent the uncharacteristically strong message to the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, saying their ongoing efforts to overthrow Colombia's democratically elected government were unjustified.

"The guerrilla war is history," said Chavez, speaking during his weekly television and radio program, "Hello President."

"At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place."

Such declarations were unexpected from Chavez, a self-described socialist who earlier this year called on world governments to remove the FARC from terrorist lists and suggested the guerrillas should be recognized as a legitimate insurgent force.

YANGON, Myanmar -- Tens of thousands of people killed in last month's cyclone may never be identified because their bodies have decomposed so badly and many ended up far from home, an aid organization said Sunday.

The task of burying an estimated 78,000 bodies has been overshadowed by efforts to assist Cyclone Nargis' 2.4 million survivors, many of whom are still without adequate food, water and shelter, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

As a result, bloated bodies still litter the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta more than five weeks after the storm, while other bodies have been dumped in canals or unmarked mass graves.

"Many now are in advanced stages of decay and the information we have been able to gather is that many of the bodies that were effected by the tidal surges were stripped of clothing and any identifying items," said Craig Strathern, a Red Cross spokesman in Myanmar.

The Red Cross has received reports that some bodies ended more than four miles from their place of origin, he said.

ALGIERS, Algeria -- Two bombs in quick succession rocked a train station in Algeria on Sunday, killing 13 people, including a French engineer and Algerian firefighters and soldiers who responded to the first blast, a security official said.

The first bomb killed a Frenchman working on a renovation project at the station in Beni Amrane, about 60 miles east of the capital, the security official said. The second bomb hit minutes later, as security officials and rescue workers arrived at the scene. Both devices appeared to be remote-controlled.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Algeria's al-Qaida affiliate, al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, is known to be active in the area.

The French engineer, working on a project to boost the number of rail lines at the station, was killed as he prepared to leave the site in a car, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media. The man's Algerian driver was also killed. France's Foreign Ministry said it was in contact with Algerian authorities about the attack but provided no other details.

The second bomb came about five minutes later. Eight soldiers and three firefighters were killed in that explosion, the official said. Several others were wounded, though the exact number was unclear.