IRAQ: Two US soldiers were killed yesterday while their car was stopped in traffic in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, and their possessions robbed by a crowd that gathered.
A roadside bomb killed another soldier north of Baghdad.Further west, in Falluja, six Iraqis were killed when a roadside bomb detonated near a passing American military convoy.
A spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division said the two soldiers in Mosul were shot in the middle of the day as they travelled from one military compound to another.
But several Iraqi witnesses said the soldiers were stabbed and had their throats slit before their attackers tried to set fire to their vehicle, a civilian four-wheel-drive.
Witnesses said locals stole items from the dead men's pockets and dropped concrete blocks on their bodies, and one Iraqi was seen brandishing bloodstained Iraqi dinars he said were taken from the bodies.
US troops quickly surrounded the area, in the crowded centre of the city, and interrogated bystanders.
"They hate the Americans in this area," said a man waiting for petrol near the scene. "They've been doing many raids around here and so it's not surprising they've been attacked."
In Baquba, 65km north of Baghdad, a 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb was detonated as their convoy drove past, spokesman Lieut Col William MacDonald said.
The attacks came a day after suicide bombers detonated cars packed with explosives outside Baquba's police headquarters and a police station in the nearby town of Khan Bani Saad.
Lieut Col MacDonald said 17 Iraqis were killed in the bombings, one fewer than initially thought.
Since Washington declared major combat in Iraq over on May 1st, 185 US soldiers have been killed in action.
Meanwhile, the leading Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said more US troops were needed in Iraq now. Senator Joseph Biden said if more counter-insurgency and special operations forces were deployed now , US troops would eventually be able to withdraw from the country more quickly.