Iraq deaths as Wolfowitz visits

Wolfowitz pushed for war with Iraq

US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is embarking on a three-day visit to Iraq as violence there continues to claim US and Iraqi lives.

Two US soldiers were killed and four wounded in a mortar attack in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and another died in the northern city of Mosul. A reported bomb attack in Falluja injured at least two soldiers.

In Baghdad, at least one Iraqi died when rockets hit a residential area.

Mr Wolfowitz is visiting as doubts grow in Washington about the progress being made by the US-led coalition.

The deaths raise to 108 the number of US soldiers killed since major hostilities were declared over in May.

Mr Wolfowitz was one of the chief architects of the war against Iraq and some would say its main intellectual driving force.

The BBC's Pentagon correspondent, Nick Childs, says that has made Mr Wolfowitz a key target of the critics, who blame him in large part for many of the problems the coalition is now facing.

It is Mr Wolfowitz's second visit to Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein to see the situation for himself.

Speaking on arrival in Baghdad, he said Iraqis increasingly were "putting their lives on the line to defend their country and build a free and prosperous future," Reuters reported.

Iraqis and Americans were "taking the fight to the enemy", he said, in an effort to defeat the forces that would thwart that aim.

For security reasons the Pentagon has said little about his schedule other than that he would meet Iraqi officials, as well as US and international troops and their commanders.

Flashpoint town

One of the latest incidents of violence occurred in Mosul where a soldier was shot dead by small arms fires as he guarded a grain silo, a US military spokesperson said.

US troops on alert at the scene of a Baghdad rocket attack

Unrest was also reported for the sixth straight day in the flashpoint town of Falluja.

Witnesses said an explosive device blew up as a US military convoy passed by, injuring several soldiers.

US officials say there are an average of 26 attacks on American soldiers each day, most of them in Baghdad and the area to the west and north of the capital.

Meanwhile, a rocket attack on a Baghdad street market on Thursday left at least one Iraqi dead and several injured, Iraqi police said.

Police said the area in the Dura neighbourhood has no military base, police station or government buildings.