Four US soldiers have been found dead west of Baghdad, apparently killed in an attack by Iraqi fighters, witnesses said today.
Insurgents took witnesses to the scene, a building site in the restive town of Ramadi, where the bloodied bodies of the four soldiers were sprawled on the ground, surrounded by scattered equipment and belongings.
It was unclear when they had died. They were not wearing the helmets or body armour routinely worn by US troops on alert.
The US military had no immediate comment on the deaths, which bring to 619 the number of US soldiers killed in action since the start of the Iraq war last year.
Insurgents, believed to include loyalists of Saddam Hussein, Sunni nationalists and foreign militants, have sown havoc in Iraq ahead of the formal transfer of sovereignty to a new interim government on June 30th.
Ramadi is part of the so-called Sunni triangle west of Baghdad, which has been at the heart of an insurgency bent on expelling US-led troops from Iraq.