Six US marines have been killed by insurgents in western Iraq.
The troops were killed in the town of Haditha, 200km northwest of Baghdad.
It was not immediately clear if they were killed in a single attack or if they died in a series of clashes.
The deaths bring to just over 1,800 the number of US troops who have died since the start of the war in Iraq in March 2003.
In the past month, nearly 60 have died, including five who were killed in roadside bomb attacks in Baghdad at the weekend.
There have been frequent insurgent attacks in the area around Haditha in recent months.
US forces have launched at least two major offensives to try to quell insurgency in the region, one of the most violent in the country.
Eight die in Baghdad attacks
Eight people have been killed in separate rebel attacks in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
Five of the victims were shot when gunmen opened fire as they left a city hospital where they had been to see the body of a Sunni cleric who was killed last night.
An Iraqi police colonel also died in a drive-by shooting, and two employees of the finance ministry were shot dead on their way to work in the city.
In another incident, a civilian was killed and five wounded, four of them policemen, when a suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol in the centre of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.
