Three US military police died in an ambush in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala and another American military policeman was killed by a bomb in Baghdad, the US military said today.
Their deaths raised to 101 the American toll from hostile action in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1st.
In the deadliest single attack on US forces since three soldiers died in an ambush near Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit on September 18th, three American military policemen died and seven were wounded in the Kerbala attack late last night.
The US military said two Iraqi police were also killed and five wounded when attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles at their patrol in Kerbala, 90 km south of Baghdad.
Hours later a fourth military policeman was reported killed in a bomb blast in the Baghdad area. Two others were wounded.
A US military statement said of the Kerbala incident: "The engagement involved an exchange of small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades as Iraqi authorities and coalition military police were investigating reports of armed men congregating on a road near the mosque after curfew."
An Iraqi witness said US troops in armoured vehicles had approached the house of local cleric Sayyid Mahmoud al-Hassani, a sympathiser of radical Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, and ordered his followers to disarm and go home.
"They (the Americans) opened fire and I saw seven dead Iraqis, some of them with Kalashnikovs," he said.