RAMADI, Iraq, Oct 28 (AFP) - At least two Iraqis were killed and eight people wounded, including three US marines, in clashes Thursday between rebels and US troops in the restive Iraqi city of Ramadi, hospital and military sources said.
Violence also flared elsewhere, with bomb blasts and a rocket attack leaving two US soldiers and at least five Iraqis dead.
The attacks came as the Al-Qaeda-linked Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it has executed 11 kidnapped members of the Iraqi national guard in a statement posted on its website along with photographs.
Iraqi security forces and US-led troops are a daily target in the violence that has plagued the country in the aftermath of last year`s invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
The fighting in Ramadi, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the capital, erupted after marines sealed off a section of the city to conduct a pre-dawn search of houses for bomb-making equipment, said Captain Sean Kuehl.
"Two to three enemy died," he told AFP, noting that three US marines were wounded in the battles that crackled into the morning, and which an AFP reporter said flared in the centre and the west of the city.
"We have known for some time that the area was a hub for IED (improvised explosive device) making," said Kuehl.
Fifteen Iraqis were detained during the operation, he added.
At Ramadi`s main hospital, Doctor Amer al-Obeidi said two dead Iraqis had been received and five wounded people admitted, including a policeman, following the clashes.
A second officer said the conflict was sparked by insurgents who opened fire on the marines as they were conducting the house search.
Adding to the tensions in Ramadi, a car bomb exploded in front of a mosque in the path of a US military, said police Lieutenant Abdel Sattar al-Dulaymi, while the marines said mortars were fired at a local government building around lunchtime.
Marine Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert that "marines are conducting increased security operations in the city of Ramadi and have been engaged today."
The Sunni Muslim bastion is a frequent scene of attacks against Iraq`s security forces and the US marines, who have been based there since mid-March.
Kuehl said the marines had killed an estimated 700-800 insurgents in the unrest since their arrival, noting that they faced a "limitless" opposition.
"There is a limitless pool of manpower these guys can draw on; it`s bottomless," he remarked.
Ramadi lies about 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the rebel stronghold of Fallujah, around which US and Iraqi troops have massed.
Expectations of an all-out military assault on Fallujah are mounting as the government struggles to restore calm to Iraq for national elections in January.
Meanwhile, US troops came under fire around Baghdad and Mosul.
A US soldier and at least one Iraqi civilian were killed and two soldiers wounded when a bomb hit a military patrol in southern Baghdad, the army said.
An explosives team was on the scene to determine the cause of the blast, which tore under a flyover along the main road south to the cities of Hilla and Najaf.
A few hours later another US soldier died in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a patrol in Balad, north of Baghdad and a third American soldier was wounded in Iraq`s main northern city of Mosul when a bomb hit another patrol.
The latest deaths brought to 1,104 the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003, according to a Pentagon tally.
Elsewhere, a policeman was shot dead and another injured when gunmen attacked a police station in a small town south of Baghdad.
And three Iraqis, including two policemen, were killed and four others wounded in two overnight attacks near the flashpoint city of Baquba, northeast of the capital.
10/28/2004 14:50 GMT - AFP