BAGHDAD, July 22 (AFP) - Twenty-five insurgents were killed in a fierce battle Wednesday with US troops in the Iraqi flashpoint city of Ramadi that also left 14 US servicemen injured, the US military said Thursday.
The clashes were triggered when insurgents set off a bomb near a Marines convoy and then attacked it with rocket propelled grenades and gunfire, according to a military statement.
It said the US forces, backed by air support, battled against an estimated 75 to 100 insurgents and detained 25 of them, as well as discovering two bombs, including a car bomb.
Police and hospital sources in Ramadi, 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Baghdad, had said Wednesday that four people, including three brothers, were killed and 14 wounded in the violence, which they said included a car bomb.
An Iraqi police officer said the three brothers were killed when the car bomb exploded in their path as they walked along a main road lined with several public buildings.