Three American troops died and another was injured in two separate attacks in the northern cities of Samarra and Tikrit, US military said on Saturday. Two soldiers were killed and one was injured in indirect fire northwest of Tikrit late Thursday, the US military press release said. A third soldier from the same unit was killed in an attack on a monitoring center in Samarra Thurdsday.
Elsewhere, an Iraqi civilian was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb went off on a highway in eastern Baghdad on Saturday, an interior Ministry source was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
In another attack, two Iraqi civilians were injured when a car bomb went off in central Baghdad on Saturday, a police source said.
Meanwhile, an anti-war rally in Australia kicked off what was expected to be a wave of global protests on Saturday, as campaigners observed the third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq with a demand that coalition troops pull out. In Tokyo, some 2,000 people marched in a downtown park.
Demonstrations were also planned across Europe.
