BAGHDAD, March 25: Bombs and gunfire hit US army convoys outside Baghdad, killing two soldiers and a Marine the past 24 hours, while an explosion Thursday set ablaze a main oil well in northern Iraq , officials said.

Adding to the unrest, four Iraqis, including a two-year-old child, were killed during a US military operation west of the capital, witnesses said. One US Marine was killed and two wounded when their convoy came under a combined homemade bomb, rocket-propelled grenade and small arms attack near Fallujah, 60 kilometres west of Baghdad, on Thursday, a spokeswoman said.

Earlier, a US soldier was killed and two injured when the line of vehicles they were travelling in was hit by a roadside bomb in the central town of Baquba, 60 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital.

"The wounded were taken to a local military facility and are in a stable condition," a second army spokeswoman said. And the previous day, a roadside bomb struck a military convoy north of Taji followed by small arms fire, killing one US soldier and wounding another, Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt told a news conference on Thursday.

US troops responded and killed three attackers, he said. Added to an official Pentagon tally, the latest deaths raised to 284 the number of US soldiers killed in action since President George Bush declared major hostilities in Iraq over on May 1. -AFP