Iraqi security forces face wave of attacks

At least 11 Iraqis were killed Saturday. Three police officers, including a provincial police chief, died and six others were wounded in two separate ambushes north of Baghdad, police said.

Masked gunmen also killed seven civilians in a series of attacks Friday and Saturday in Iraq's "triangle of death," south of Baghdad, police and witnesses said.

A US soldier has died from his wounds after his patrol was hit by a homemade bomb that wounded three other troops on Saturday in northern Baghdad, the army said yesterday.

A US marine was killed Saturday in Al-Anbar province, where renewed fighting erupted in the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah after days of relative calm following last month's blistering assault on the city, the US military said.

Marines in the Sunni Muslim city fired several dozen artillery rounds from their main base near the town during the day, an AFP correspondent said.

Military commanders say their assault on Fallujah crippled Iraq's insurgency, but eight coalition soldiers were wounded Saturday when their convoy was attacked with mortar rounds, grenades and small arms fire in the northern city of Mosul.

US air support dropped a 500-pound (quarter tonne) bomb on the attackers, but the number of casualties among the attackers was unknown, the army said.