Agence France-Presse,
BAGHDAD: A rocket attack on a US military base south of Baghdad on Wednesday killed three soldiers and wounded two in the third lethal attack on troops this week, the military said.
“There was an indirect fire incident that killed three coalition force service members and wounded two,” military spokesman Lieutenant Michael Street told AFP.
An Iraqi civilian was wounded in the attack.
The US military usually uses the term “indirect fire” to indicate rocket attacks.
The latest deaths bring the military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 3,987, according to an AFP tally based on independent website icasualties.org.
The US military has lost 11 personnel in the past three days.
On Monday, eight were killed in the deadliest day for the US military since August.
Five of them died in a suicide bombing in Baghdad as they were on foot patrol in the capital's once upscale Mansur neighbourhood.
Three were killed along with their translator in a bomb blast in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.
The last major attack against US troops was on January 9 when six US soldiers were killed when they entered a booby-trapped house in Diyala.
On August 22, 2007, 14 American soldiers were killed in northern Iraq after their Blackhawk came down during a pre-dawn flight.
The mounting toll comes at a time when the US military is reducing troop numbers amid claims by American commanders that daily violence has fallen 60 percent in Iraq since June.
Last year proved the deadliest year for American forces in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, with at least 901 soldiers killed.
The military's losses in Iraq are one of the key issues in the US presidential election and have hit the campaign of President George W. Bush's Republican party.
The rising death toll comes amid talks between US and Iraqi officials on the future of the US military presence in Iraq.
On Monday, US and Iraqi delegations began talks on arrangements for long-term cooperation and friendship, including an agreement on a temporary US troop presence in Iraq, the Iraqi foreign ministry said.
The talks follow a November agreement between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki setting a July 31 target date to formalise economic, political, and security relations between the two countries.
At the time, Maliki said the accord sets 2008 as the final year for US-led forces to operate in Iraq under a UN mandate, which the new bilateral arrangement would replace.
The agreements will work out the future role and number of US forces in Iraq in the shadow of the November 2008 US presidential election, despite sky-high American public opposition to the war.
When finalised, the new agreement would trigger the end of UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and return full sovereignty to the government in Baghdad.
The talks between the two delegations are expected to cover issues such as whether Washington will have permanent bases in Iraq, and how many US troops will be stationed here and for how long.
The final deal would require the approval of the Iraqi parliament.
