3 more US soldiers, Iraqi Olympic officials killed

[Bluebear]

The U.S. military said Thursday that a Marine assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division died Wednesday in Anbar, the province west of Baghdad where insurgents are strong. A soldier assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died there on Tuesday.

A roadside bomb killed an American soldier Wednesday and wounded three others south of the Iraqi capital, the military said.

At least 2,959 American troops have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed 15 people and wounded 15 others in a crowd of police volunteers in eastern Baghdad, Iraqi police and the U.S. military said. The dead included three police officers and 12 recruits. Bodies were strewn on gurneys and on the ground outside a hospital for hours, covered in blue sheeting as commuters passed by.

Officials also announced the murder of Iraq's Olympic cycling coach, killed after gunmen kidnapped him from his home. Family members identified the body of 48-year-old Mahoud Ahmed Fulayih at the central morgue in the capital on Monday, two days after he was abducted, said Hussein al-Amidi, the acting secretary general of Iraq's National Olympic Committee.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061221/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq