US troops killed three suspected insurgents wearing Iraqi police uniforms yesterday in the northern city of Kirkuk, the military said.
The US military also announced the death of a US soldier in roadside blast in Baghdad.
US spokesman Major Jeff Allen said a gun battle broke out at a checkpoint in Kirkuk, 290km north of Baghdad, and three men wearing Iraqi police uniforms inside a car were shot dead.
US troops captured a fourth man in the car, but found no police identity documents on the men. Iraqi police Brigadier Serhad Qadir said the four were suspected insurgents disguised as policemen.
The US military was investigating the situation.
The US soldier was killed when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle on Saturday evening in Baghdad, the military said yesterday. The military had previously reported the death of another soldier in a similar but separate attack on Saturday in Baghdad.
Gunmen killed Lieutenant General Mahmoud Idham, a high-ranking officer in the former Iraqi Army, yesterday outside his house just north of former president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 130km north of Baghdad, said police Captain Thaer Hameed.
An Iraqi policeman was killed and another wounded when their patrol was ambushed by armed men yesterday near the prison in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, Diyala police's Joint Coordination Center said. A civilian was also wounded.
A mortar round was fired toward Baqouba's police headquarters but exploded in a nearby residential area, wounding two civilians and two policemen, police said.
Meanwhile, four Western peace advocates abducted last November were shown in a videotape broadcast on Saturday, and their captors renewed their threat to kill the hostages if all Iraqi prisoners were not set free.
The video, played on the Arabic-language television station al-Jazeera, showed the four men -- a Briton, an American and two Canadians -- looking gaunt and standing against a white wall. They were shown speaking, but their voices could not be heard, an increasingly common feature of such videos here.
The tape, bearing the date Jan. 21, was broadcast on a day when at least 13 Iraqis were killed in attacks in Baghdad and south of the capital.
Al-Jazeera said the video came with a statement from the kidnappers, the Swords of Truth, saying that the men would be killed if the US and Iraqi authorities did not release all Iraqi prisoners.
The aid group, Christian Peacemaker Teams, has identified the four men as Norman Kember, 74, of London; Tom Fox, 54, of Clearbrook, Virginia; James Loney, 41, of Toronto, Canada; and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, also a Canadian. They were kidnapped on Nov. 26.
In the video, three of the men were wearing wool hats. All wore ordinary clothing rather than the orange prison-style jumpsuits captives sometimes wear. Each stood with his hands clasped in front of him as he briefly addressed the camera.
The captors have threatened to kill the men before, and previously set a deadline of Dec. 10. The video broadcast on Saturday was the first news of the hostages since that threat.
In Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, 10 Iraqis were killed and three were wounded when a bomb exploded inside a candy shop on Saturday evening, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Among the three Iraqis killed Saturday in Baghdad was Abdul Razzaq al-Na'ash, a Baghdad university professor in his 50s. He was gunned down near the university's management institute at 2:45pm, according to an Interior Ministry official said.
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