Roadside bombings killed seven more US soldiers across Iraq, and two suicide car bombs in Baghdad left 15 people dead as US protesters told Congress to cut funds for a new Baghdad security plan.
As the latest US deaths were announced late on Saturday, tens of thousands marched in Washington and California to demand that US lawmakers turn off the cash tap and force President George W. Bush to start a troop withdrawal.
The US military also revealed that militants disguised as US troops had abducted and executed four soldiers during a raid earlier this month in Iraq's central shrine city of Karbala.
The latest casualties brought the US military's losses in Iraq to 3,068, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures, with roadside bombings a key factor since the March 2003 invasion.
In Washington, Vietnam War protest icon Jane Fonda was among the protesters who demanded that Congress cut off funds for the Iraq war.
Jane Fonda
"I haven't spoken at an anti-war rally for 34 years," said Fonda, whose visit to Hanoi in 1972 outraged many compatriots and damaged her career as an actress.
"But silence is no longer an option," she told a cheering crowd.
The rally came ahead of an expected Senate vote on a non-binding resolution condemning Bush's new strategy to deploy 21,500 more troops in war-torn Iraq in a bid to restore security in Baghdad and elsewhere.
The protester said they would demand a binding resolution to cut off funds for the war.
"Our fellow Americans are dying as we stand here today," actor Sean Penn said. "We're going to push this until this resolution is binding, the money stops and the troops come home."
In Baghdad, civilians were once again the target of sectarian attacks.
Two coordinated suicide car bombs near the al-Bayadh cinema in the eastern Jadida district killed 15 people and wounded 55 others, security officials said.
At least eight more people died in other attacks.
Insurgents have also killed seven more US soldiers in three roadside bomb attacks since Thursday, the US military said.
To rein in the violence in Baghdad, Iraqi and US authorities are fine-tuning a plan that would post a total of 80,000 US and Iraqi troops in the city.
Discussion
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Bush discussed by telephone ways of ensuring the plan would succeed, Maliki's office said.
In Karbala, Iraqi forces tightened security as Shiite Muslims headed towards the shrine city to commemorate the mourning period of Ashura.
"Three security perimeters have been put in place around the city and police have been posted at access points as well as in surrounding fields," Karbala governor Akhil al-Khazali said.
The goal, he said, was to "prevent terrorist infiltration."
Ashura, which culminates tomorrow, commemorates the seventh-century slaying of Prophet Mohammed's grandson Imam Hussein on the orders of Sunni caliph Yazid.
The ceremony draws Shiite Muslims from all over Iraq and also from Iran, Pakistan and other Middle Eastern countries.
At least 24 Iraqis were killed in ambushes, car bombs and firefights yesterday.
A car bomb ripped through Baghdad's Sadr City, the impoverished Shiite bastion of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, killing eight people and wounding 18, a security source said.
"A car bomb exploded around midday in Sadr City," the source said.
Also yesterday, a US helicopter was shot down near the holy Iraqi city of Najaf, the local governor said, although there was no confirmation from the US military.
"An American military helicopter was hit by terrorist fire near Zarqa, north of Najaf, and crashed," provinical governor Assad Abu Khalal said.
The area has been the scene of fighting between Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces backed by US helicopters, security sources said.
A spokesman for the US military would only say: "We can't comment on ongoing operations."
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