The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Baghdad

Roadside bomb attacks on their vehicles have killed two US troops in separate incidents in Iraq, the US military announced on Monday.

A soldier died of wounds sustained when his vehicle was hit on Sunday by a bomb in northern Baghdad, a military statement said without giving the exact location.

US and Iraqi forces have been battling Shiite militiamen for the past five days in eastern and northern Baghdad.

A marine was killed, meanwhile, when his vehicle was attacked "by an enemy force with an improvised explosive device" in western Anbar province on Saturday, a separate statement said.

Anbar, once a stronghold of Al-Qaeda, has been relatively peaceful in recent months after Sunni tribal leaders formed a coalition against the jihadists and chased them out of the province but US commanders warn that no part of Iraq is free from attack.

The latest deaths bring the US military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 4,010, according to an AFP tally based on the independent website icasualties.org.

Meanwhile, US air strikes and military assaults have killed 41 "criminals" in Baghdad, including 25 who died when an alleged mortar team was bombed, the American military announced on Monday.

The killings occurred on Sunday in eastern and northeastern Baghdad where US and Iraqi forces have been battling the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr since Tuesday.

The deaths push the toll from six days of fighting between security forces and Shiite militiamen in Baghdad, the southern city of Basra and several other Shiite areas to more than 320, at least 140 of these in Baghdad.

On Sunday, Sadr ordered his fighters off the streets while the government agreed not to pursue those involved in the fighting provided they stowed their weapons.

A US military statement said American soldiers were hunting for the launch site of a rocket or mortar attack in eastern Baghdad on Sunday when their Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, injuring one soldier. While soldiers were securing the area they found a second bomb nearby. They were then attacked with mortars or rockets, rocket propelled grenades and small-arms fire from a nearby house.

"A mortar team was spotted on the roof of the house where the attack was coming from," the statement said, adding that air support was called in and the house bombed, killing "25 criminals."

In northeast Baghdad, another eight "criminals" were killed when they attacked US soldiers, a separate statement said.

Among those who died were two who were killed when US attack helicopters fired two Hellfire missiles at fighters who launched an attack on soldiers manning a checkpoint in Kadhimiyah neighbourhood, a Mahdi Army stronghold.

Another eight "criminals" were killed in a series of other attacks on US forces Sunday, a third statement said.

Sadr in a statement on Sunday distanced himself from those "who carry weapons and target the government, the offices of the government and its parties".