BAGHDAD, May 27: Ten US servicemen were killed across Iraq in a series of incidents that have kept May on course to be one of the bloodiest months of the war, the US military reported on Sunday.

The spike in US casualties comes amid a four-month-long surge in US troop numbers meant to restore stability to the turbulent capital but which has also exposed the troops to greater losses.

Already more than a 100 servicemen have died in May, making for a grim run-up to America’s Memorial Day at the end of the month when a country increasingly disillusioned by the four-year-old war commemorates its dead.

One US soldier was killed and another four wounded when a roadside bomb blew up near their patrol in western Baghdad on Saturday, and another soldier was killed and two wounded in a similar blast northeast of the capital.

Three soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded next to their vehicle in the Sunni province of Salaheddin on Saturday. Two others were wounded in the blast.

Another explosion on Saturday, this time in southern Baghdad, killed a soldier and wounded two others. Their unit had been searching for weapons caches and detaining insurgent suspects.

In western Anbar province a marine was killed in combat.

A complex attack involving explosives and small arms fire killed another soldier late on Friday north of the capital near Taji. Three others were wounded in the attack.

On Wednesday, another roadside bomb in the predominantly Shia eastern part of the capital exploded killing two soldiers.

Since Friday at least 19 service members have been reported dying and the latest casualties bring the number killed since the March 2003 invasion to 3,455.—AFP