Four US marines were killed in the mainly Sunni province of Anbar Thursday, it was announced on Saturday.
Meanwhile, US commanders have decided to deploy just less that 4,000 additional troops in the mainly Shiite capital to try to halt a surge in bomb and gun attacks by rival sectarian gangs. Just southeast of Baghdad, Saturday police found the bodies of at least 12 civilians, most of them kidnap victims who had been tortured and shot.
At least 12 people were wounded in Tayaran Square market in the center of the city when a bomb exploded. A second attack in a northern suburb injured three police and three bystanders.
On Saturday, six civilians were killed in the ethnically mixed northern oil city of Kirkuk when a bomb exploded beside a petrol station. Six more people were killed in various attacks around Baquba, including a police officer and a soldier, while three civilians were kidnapped just outside the restive northern city.
A Katyusha rocket was fired into deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, killing a woman, AFP reported. Police also reported that a former official of the Baath party who worked as a teacher in Nasiriyah was shot dead by gunmen.
Another civilian was shot dead in his pickup truck in Samarra, north of the capital, according to police, who could not suggest a motive for his slaying.
