BAGHDAD—A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers and an interpreter in a region of northern Iraq where U.S. and Iraqi forces are battling al Qaeda, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
The attack, which brought the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq this week to seven, suggests al Qaeda remains dangerous in the northern province of Nineveh and its capital, Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad.
A spokesman said U.S. forces did not know exactly who was responsible for Tuesday night's attack in Nineveh, but they suspected al Qaeda.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have been conducting intensive operations against al Qaeda in the Mosul area for weeks, aiming to stamp out the Sunni Arab insurgents in a city U.S. officials say is their last major urban stronghold.
Separately, a U.S. air strike on a house killed a family, including four children aged between four and 11, in the village of Samra, near the northern town of Tikrit, police spokesman Colonel Hatim Akram Thabit said.
"American war planes attacked the house and they killed six -- the father, his wife, two sons and two daughters," he said.
The U.S. military said in a statement that U.S. troops had received small arms fire, then they saw an armed man running into a group of buildings. They called for him to come out.
"When he refused to comply, coalition forces ... called for supporting aircraft to engage the building," it said, adding that the air strike had killed him and destroyed the building, but that U.S. troops had not seen any other casualties.
In another incident, U.S. forces said they killed three occupants of a vehicle that fired on their convoy near Baghdad airport.
Military Toll
Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Mohammed al-Askari promised more military operations in the northern provinces of Nineveh and Diyala, centers of al Qaeda activity.
"Nineveh province is a big province. It cannot be secured overnight; it needs huge efforts. There will be an operation for these small red (hot) spots," he told a news briefing.
Preparations were also under way for an operation to "cleanse (Diyala province) thoroughly of terrorists," once Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki authorizes it, he said.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said last month that al Qaeda in Iraq had never been closer to defeat. But U.S. and Iraqi officials say the group, blamed for countless bombings that killed thousands of people, remains a threat.
Tuesday's attack brings the U.S. military death toll to 25 so far in June, according to the independent Web site iCasualties.org, which tracks U.S. military casualties.
It came on the same day that two U.S. soldiers and two U.S. government employees, as well as six Iraqis, were killed when a bomb exploded at a council meeting in the Baghdad stronghold of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
On Monday, a gunman killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded three as they left a council building southeast of Baghdad.
Deaths among the 150,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have risen again in June after falling to 19 in May, the lowest monthly total since the 2003 invasion. More than 4,100 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq in the last five years.
The future of U.S. troops in Iraq is a key issue in November's U.S. presidential election and the subject of tough negotiations between the Iraqi and U.S. governments.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said after meeting U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday progress was being made.
"I think we have very good, important steps toward reaching ... this agreement," Talabani told reporters after the meeting at the White House. "And we continue our struggle to, our efforts to reach ... very soon this agreement."
The U.S. military says violence fell to a four-year low in May after crackdowns by U.S. and Iraqi forces on Shi'ite militias in Baghdad and the south and on al Qaeda in Mosul.
Askari said 95 wanted people, including some local government members, had been arrested during an offensive against Shi'ite militias in the southern province of Maysan.
Twenty-one arms caches had been found, he said.
He said the government was giving militants a one-week amnesty before security forces fan out through Maysan province in a new phase of the operation to root out weapons.
During the next week, militants can surrender to tribal leaders, who must submit a commitment to the security forces that the militant will not take up arms again.
"The amnesty covers everybody except those whose hands have been stained with Iraqi blood," he said.
Iraqi forces swept through Amara, Maysan's provincial capital, last week, seizing heavy weapons and arresting wanted men. They met no resistance.
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