KARBALA, Oct 17: The deaths of three US soldiers here on Friday takes the total of American combat fatalities since the end of hostilities was declared on May 1 into three figures.

But, as the deaths of two Iraqi policemen in the same attack indicate, the real death toll in those five-and-a-half months is considerably higher, including as it does hundreds of Iraqi civilians, United Nations employees, British soldiers in the south of the country as well as a growing number of US troops who have died in accidents away from the line of fire.

In addition, more than 650 American soldiers have been wounded in the almost daily attacks on occupation forces since US President George Bush proclaimed an end to major combat.

From the start of the hostilities on March 20 until May 1, some 138 US soldiers were killed in combat and a further 24 died in accidents.

Among the deadliest attacks on American targets in the post-occupation period was an ambush on July 24 at Qaiyara, southeast of Mosul, in which three soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were killed in a small arms and rocket-propelled grenade attack, the first time more than two men had died in any one action.

Two days later, three men from the Fourth Infantry Division died at Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad, while on duty outside a children’s hospital.

Three more soldiers were killed on Sept 18 in an ambush near Tikrit, hometown of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.—AFP