Roadside bomb kills three U.S. soldiers in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed three U.S.soldiers and an interpreter in Iraq's Diyala province onMonday, the same day a suicide bomber killed five U.S. soldiersin the capital Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

Ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala is one of fourprovinces north of Baghdad where U.S. and Iraqi forces havemounted offensives this year to fight al Qaeda militants whohave regrouped in the region.

The bombing in Baghdad, which the U.S. military hadconfirmed on Monday, was the worst single attack on U.S. forcesin the capital in nearly nine months.

Also in Iraq's north, police said four Iraqi policemen,four gunmen and one civilian were killed on Tuesday in anattack on a security checkpoint in the city of Mosul, which theU.S. military says is al Qaeda's last major urban stronghold.

Monday's deaths took to at least 3,982 the number of U.S.troops killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March2003. Ten soldiers have been killed this month, compared to 81in the whole of March 2007.

Violence across Iraq has dropped 60 percent since 30,000extra U.S. troops became fully deployed in June, and a decisionby Sunni tribal leaders to turn on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

But recent attacks demonstrate that Iraq is far from safe,and a suicide car bomb in Sulaimaniya on Monday showed thateven Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish north, considered the moststable region of in the country, is vulnerable.

The U.S. death toll is approaching 4,000 at a time whensetting a timetable for withdrawing troops has become a centralissue in the U.S. presidential election campaign.

Some 2,000 U.S. soldiers are being withdrawn from Baghdadunder a Pentagon plan to pull out five brigades by July 31.

U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said onSunday a recent increase in bombings was not the start of awider trend and that violence was down overall.

(Editing by Stephen Weeks)