Six more US troops die in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Six more US troops have died in Iraq, including three marines and a sailor killed in a day of fighting in the restive province of Diyala north of the capital, the military said yesterday.

The four were killed on Tuesday while fighting in the second most dangerous province in Iraq after Baghdad, where 10,000 US and Iraqi troops have been carrying out a major assault on suspected Al-Qaeda strongholds.

Another soldier was shot dead in south Baghdad on Wednesday, and a sixth died of non-battle related causes on Tuesday, the military said.

The latest fatalities took the US military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 3,640, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

Earlier on Thursday the number two US commander in Iraq told reporters that US casualties seemed to be declining since May, calling it an "initial positive sign" that a five-month-old security plan was showing results.

"We topped out in May in casualties and we kind of predicted that because we went into areas that we had not been in for a long time and they were safe havens established by the extremists," said Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno. "Going into these areas we knew it would be tough in the beginning. We've now taken control of these areas," he added.

In late June thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers poured into the Diyala province in an assault known as Operation Arrowhead Ripper aimed at dislodging Al-Qaeda insurgents from the provincial capital of Baquba.

But soon after the invasion was launched Odierno said 80 percent of the senior Al-Qaeda leadership in the city had fled ahead of the assault, leaving behind a labyrinth of booby-trapped structures and buried bombs.