Blasts kill seven US troops

Roadside bombers killed seven US troops in one day, four of them in a single blast near Baghdad, raising to at least 28 the number of American soldiers killed this week.

The total includes an eighth soldier who died of non-combat causes yesterday.

In the deadliest attack, four US soldiers were killed and an Iraqi interpreter was wounded when a bomb blew up their vehicle during combat operations north-west of Baghdad.

Roadside bombs also killed a US airman in Tikrit, and two US soldiers in eastern Baghdad whose unit had recently targeted roadside bomb networks, the military said.

In addition, a British soldier also died yesterday of wounds from a roadside bombing a day earlier in the southern city of Basra.

The increased recent frequency of large-scale attacks may signal militants are using larger bombs or explosively formed penetrators, known as EFPs, as they fight back against a series of US military operations.

The military has staged a series of counterattacks this week on roadside bomb factories and insurgent strongholds where stockpiles of explosives have been uncovered.

US forces using tips from Iraqi informants raided a safe house before dawn yesterday and detained three militants with suspected ties to Iran, the military said.

The operation in Sadr City, Baghdad’s main Shiite enclave, was the latest in a series of raids on targets where militiamen are believed to have ties to Iran.

The United States claims Iran is arming Shiite militias and some Sunni insurgents with EFPs, which have killed hundreds of U.S. troops in recent months.