Insurgents have launched a wave of attacks in Iraq, killing seven Iraqis and four US soldiers in separate incidents in Iraq.

A suicide car bomb blast at a checkpoint outside the town of Baquba, killing six Iraqi guardsmen. Another roadside bomb also killed a local police chief in the capital, just hours before interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi returned from a 10-day foreign trip during which he tried to win neighboring countries' support in stabilizing Iraq.

The US military said two American soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb blast overnight on Baghdad's western outskirts. And two US marines were killed in action in the violent Anbar province in the country's west.

The four deaths raise to 681 the number of American troops killed in action since the war to oust Saddam Hussein.

(CRI August 4, 2004)