Despite intensive security measures, U.S. forces still face almost daily attacks across Iraq (AFP)

KARBALA, October 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Five U.S. soldiers were reportedly killed and several others wounded within the last 24 hours in separate attacks across war-ravaged Iraq.

Three American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen were killed when ambushed in central Iraq overnight, while one soldier was killed and two others were wounded Friday, October 17, when an explosive device exploded in Baghdad, Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Abu Dhabi-based Al-Arabiya television reported that a fifth American soldier was killed in an attack in the northern city of Mosul.

"This morning at 7:50 am (0450 GMT) one military policeman from the 220th Military Police Brigade was killed and two others were wounded in an improvised explosive device in the Baghdad area," AFP quoted an American spokeswoman as saying.

Earlier Major Ralph Manos, public information officer for the force patrolling Karbala area, told AFP "we confirmed three American MPs (military police) killed and four wounded."

He said the routine patrol was ambushed by Iraqis from the rooftops of buildings in the vicinity of Al-Abbas mosque, one of the two main shrines in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.

"The attackers, who are bodyguards of local (Shiite) religious leader Mahmud al-Hassani, used RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and AK47 rifles. They were about 20 to 30 attackers," claimed the American military spokesman.

He added that two Iraqi policemen were also killed and four others injured in the attack.

Although Iraqi police officers are drawn from the local population, those opposed to the U.S. military occupation accuse them of being collaborators and have been the target of a series of attacks since the U.S.-led forces took control of the country, the BBC News Online had said.

Manos said the extent of casualties among the assailants could not immediately be established.

But a member of Hassani's militia told AFP in Karbala that U.S. troops killed several people in the overnight shootout.

The militiaman, who would not give his name, said they had been patrolling the impoverished neighborhood around Al-Abbas mosque in defiance of an overnight curfew imposed by the occupation forces following clashes between rival Shiite factions Monday.

The American military spokesman argued that Hassani's forces "were among the parties that took part in the clashes on Monday night among local forces.

"I do not believe that Hassani's forces were on Moqtada Sadr's side," he said, referring to the firebrand Shiite leader who has called for a time-framed end to occupation.

Karbala, 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of Baghdad, is one of Shiite Islam's holiest cities and was the scene of a major pilgrimage last week.

"This morning at 7:50 am (0450 GMT) one military policeman from the 220th Military Police Brigade was killed and two others were wounded in an improvised explosive device in the Baghdad area," she said.

The deaths took to at least 101 the number of U.S. troops killed in action since President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1, according to an AFP count.

But observers said the number is much less than the real death toll of almost daily attacks on U.S. forces, with the Americans always rushing to remove all fatalities from the scene of attack.

The attack came one day after Washington got a unanimous support from all 15 members of the U.N. Security Council, including Syria, for its new Iraq resolution, but with no pledges for military or financial contribution to its occupation authority in the war-ravaged country amidst fears of the deteriorating security situation.

The resolution did not reportedly met Iraqis’ expectations, as it failed to draw a timetable for the U.S.-led occupation forces to pack up and leave or handing over authority to the Iraqis.

Loans Not Grants

Bush "must do more to ensure that America's troops and taxpayers don't have to go on shouldering this costly burden virtually alone," Daschle said

In another development, the U.S. Senate passed late Thursday an amendment requiring Baghdad to pay back half of the 20 billion dollars allocated for reconstruction of the occupied country.

The vote came after the Bush administration lobbied hard for days against the amendment, arguing that the money - part of the president's 87 billion dollar budget supplement - should be in outright grants.

Opposition leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat, said the Senate "sent a strong, bipartisan message to this administration: It must do more to ensure that America's troops and taxpayers don't have to go on shouldering this costly burden virtually alone".

One of the Senate amendment supporters, Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, said that Iraq "has the right to be treated as a partner," and therefore "can help finance its own reconstruction, which is a tiny contribution for a country with a trillion dollars in liquid gold".

The vote also came one day after the United States won a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for funds and troops to be sent from other countries to Iraq without a deadline for an end to the presence of foreign troops on its soil or releasing the grip on its oil fields.

A U.S. press report said in January that American officials are seriously considering proposals that the U.S. tap Iraq’s oil to help pay the cost of a military occupation, a move the paper said would further fan suspicions of U.S. motives in Iraq.