Three U.S. soldiers and three U.S. Marines were killed during combat in Iraq, the military said Wednesday. One U.S. soldier and three Marines died during combat in Anbar Province, the US military said in its statement. At 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, two troops with the Army's Multinational Division died when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in northwest Baghdad while conducting combat operations, the military said.
Elsewhere, a car bombing attack killed nine people and injured 33 at a fuel station near Iraq's Interior Ministry in central Baghdad on Wednesday, police and Interior Ministry sources said. The car, rigged with explosives, was left in the busy petrol station in the Bab al-Sharji district.
In another incident, a reporter for a local newspaper in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was killed along with her driver on Wednesday, police said.
Additionally, police found 10 bodies in the town of Latifiya, 40 km south of Baghdad, police said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Wednesday the international community must come up with a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. However, he added that removing forces immediately would be a bad idea.
"Personally I think that if it left straight away it would be even worse but we need a timetable for retreat for the multinational force," he said on France 2 television. "And we also need the responsibility for security to be transferred to the Iraqis."
