From correspondents in Baghdad

June 11, 2007 06:33pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse

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THREE US soldiers were killed in a bridge collapse caused by a bomb blast near Baghdad yesterday, the military said, bringing the total US military death toll in Iraq to more than 3500.

"Three coalition force soldiers were killed and six were wounded when the checkpoint they were manning was struck by a suicide car bomb south of Baghdad near Mahmudiyah June 10," the military said today.

An interpreter was also wounded in the attack, which destroyed part of a highway overpass, it said.

The deaths bring to 28 the number of US troops killed in Iraq so far this month and the overall death toll to at least 3,501 since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

The military said an engineering unit was being dispatched with bulldozers and other heavy equipment to clear the highway, which was partially blocked by debris from the overpass in Mahmudiyah.

Last month, three US soldiers were snatched during an insurgent ambush on a small American unit manning a temporary observation post near Mahmudiyah, during which four US soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed.

An al-Qaeda front group said a week ago that it had killed the three soldiers, whose capture triggered a massive search operation by American and Iraqi forces in the area south of Baghdad known as the "Triangle of Death."

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Iraqis stand on top of what appears to be a destroyed US military humvee in the predominantly Shiite Fidhiliyah area on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 10, 2007. [AP]