BAGHDAD, June 16: Six US servicemen and six Iraqi policemen were killed amid a spate of violence in Iraq that left more than 40 people dead in two days. Five marines were killed in a roadside bomb during combat operations on Wednesday night near the flashpoint town of Ramadi, west of the capital, the US military said in a statement.

Another statement said a US sailor died of his wounds the same day when he was hit by small arms fire in clashes with guerillas, also in Ramadi.

The US deaths raised to 1,706 the number of military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

US troops are continuing to battle guerillas in Al Anbar province, which includes the hotspots of Ramadi and Fallujah, despite a major offensive in the region last November.

On Thursday, six Iraqi policemen were killed and 25 wounded in a suicide car bombing targeting Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, an interior ministry source said.

“Six public order brigade members were killed and 25 wounded when a suicide car bomber targeted their convoy on the airport road,” he said, adding that the mid-afternoon attack destroyed five vehicles in the convoy.

And two gunmen dressed as policemen killed Karim Kazimi, a former senior member of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, in Hindiyah near Karbala, said a spokesman for the local provincial authority. Late on Wednesday, three Iraqis, including two children, were killed in a roadside bomb in Khan bani Saad, north of Baghdad.—AFP