In Baghdad, three U.S. troops were killed and eight others were injured Monday when a roadside bomb detonated near a helicopter carrying a military medical crew, according to U.S. military officials.

The medical team was reportedly attacked as it responded to a vehicle accident in southwestern Baghdad in which one soldier was wounded, the military said in a statement.

In a press statement issued Tuesday, the forces said a U.S. soldier was killed in combat while trying to maintain security and stability in Al-Anbar Province Monday.

Another statement by the occupation forces said an Iraqi civilian was killed when two improvised explosive devices blew up on the side of a motorway near Al-Saqlawiya area in Al-Anbar after the passing of a U.S. patrol. No U.S. casualties were sustained in that incident, the statement added.

Meanwhile, Australia will send an extra 450 troops to Iraq to help protect a Japanese humanitarian mission in the south and bolster the country's transition to democracy, Prime Minister John Howard said.

In a move Howard accepted would be politically unpopular, Australia will raise its commitment from 950 to 1,400 troops "because circumstances have changed" since Iraq's election three weeks ago, said Howard.

"The government believes that Iraq is very much at a tilting point and it's very important that the opportunity of democracy, not only in Iraq, but also in other parts of the Middle East, be seized and consolidated," he told reporters.

"Here and now we have a situation where a victory for the insurgency, the terrorists in Iraq, would strike an enormous blow to western and democratic prestige in that part of the world and in the broader world community."

Australia, an original member of US President George W Bush's "coalition of the willing" committed 2,000 troops to the 2003 invasion phase, reduced in the reconstruction phase to around 950.

Howard, who repeatedly said before Australia's October election that he had no plans to increase the commitment, denied the decision was a policy reversal. He said circumstances had changed in four and half months.

"I know it will be unpopular with many people," he said, adding, "I ask those people to take into account the reasons that I have given."

A decision by the Netherlands to withdraw its 1,400-strong military contingent had made it necessary for Australia to send more troops, said Howard.

Howard said the request to send more troops had come not from Bush but from British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a phone call on Monday and from Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last Friday.

 © 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)