Baghdad, April 30, 2005 - Seven US soldiers were killed and six wounded in Iraq, the military said on Saturday.

A bomb attack on a Task Force Freedom convoy on Thursday killed four US soldiers in Tal Afar city, 150km east of the Syrian border, the military said in a brief statement. Two soldiers wounded in the attack were treated at a combat hospital.

Two US soldiers were killed on Friday when a Task Force Baghdad patrol struck a homemade bomb in the western part of the capital, the military said in a statement. Nine suspects in a nearby house were detained by the military.

In western Iraq, a soldier was killed on Saturday by gunfire in Khaldiyah, 120km west of Baghdad, the military said in a statement from Camp Fallujah. The soldier was assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.

The names of the deceased soldiers were being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Elsewhere, four US soldiers in a convoy were wounded when their Humvee rolled into a ditch late on Friday night near Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, the US military said Saturday.

As of Friday, at least 1 581 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1 199 died as a result of hostile action, according to the US Defence Department.

Edited by trs