IRAQ’S cascade of violence has claimed more American lives, with a bomb attack on a military convoy killing one US soldier yesterday and gunmen slaying another in an ambush on a patrol in the capital.

Three more American soldiers have died in the last 24 hours in Baghdad as guerilla attacks targeting the occupation forces showed no signs of abating.

US troops killed 11 Iraqis who ambushed a convoy outside Baghdad yesterday. It was one of the most intense clashes yet in the daily grind of attacks on American forces.

SOME of the first examples of written words and number systems from the dawn of civilisation are missing from museums in Baghdad.