large post

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers Friday south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

The troops were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Babil province, a military statement said.

Eleven American troops have died in the first five days of the month in Iraq -- all but one in hostilities.

So far this year, 235 U.S. military deaths have occurred in Iraq, including 76 last month. April marked the highest monthly death toll since November.

In the wake of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, 2,415 U.S. military troops and civilians have been killed in the Iraq war.

The figures were compiled from Pentagon news releases. Other reported deaths this week include:

· Three soldiers died in roadside bombings -- one Monday south of Baghdad and two Thursday in the capital.

· Three Marines were killed in combat in Anbar province in separate incidents Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

· An Army National Guardsman died Wednesday in Tammin, also in Anbar, when a suicide bomber in a vehicle detonated a bomb.

· A soldier died Wednesday in a noncombat-related incident.

In other violence, three insurgents were killed Thursday in fighting with American soldiers near Samarra, north of the capital, the U.S. military said. A citizen was wounded during the firefight.

The fighting got under way when troops from the Task Force Band of Brothers apprehended three "known" bomb placers, the military said in a statement.

From a rooftop, people wielding small arms fired at the troops as they were taking way the detainees, officials said.

"The troops suppressed the rooftop fire and entered and killed the three attackers from the rooftop," the statement said.

Also Thursday, a female bomber removed an explosives-laden vest after being denied access to a Baghdad courthouse and left it in a bag outside the building, where it exploded and killed at least nine people, a witness told the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

The blast, outside the eastern Baghdad courthouse on busy Palestine Street, wounded 46 others, the ministry said.

Elsewhere Thursday in Baghdad, Iraqi army Brig. Gen. Mohammed Abdul Latif was gunned down in the western Yarmouk neighborhood as he drove to work, the Interior Ministry said.

In Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's ancestral homeland, police said they found 16 bodies Thursday. All were shot in the head, and police said they were unable to identify the bodies.

Also in Tikrit, gunmen shot and killed a police officer in a drive-by shooting, police said. Another police officer was wounded.

In Ramadi, west of the capital, eight insurgents were killed in a firefight with American Marines, the U.S. military said.

In Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, police found two bodies dumped in plastic bags near a bridge Thursday, a police spokesman said. The bodies have not been identified.

Other developments

· The U.S. military on Thursday showed reporters sections of a video that it said showed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi looking less than competent while handling an automatic rifle. (Full story)

· A report from retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey said the American strategy in Iraq is "painfully but gradually succeeding" and predicted that U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq for another three to five years. McCaffrey's memo, presented to students and faculty at the U.S. Military Academy, said that victory in Iraq is a 10-year task and that the United States "will remain in a serious crisis in Iraq during the coming 24 months." The Pentagon had no comment. (Watch new ideas on a U.S. exit strategy -- 2:11)

CNN's Arwa Damon, Jennifer Deaton, Cal Perry and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.