Three U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq attacks
A spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division said its men were shot dead shortly after midday (1100 GMT) as they traveled from one military compound in the bustling northern city to another.
But several Iraqi witnesses said the soldiers were stabbed and had their throats slit. Television pictures showed large pools of blood on the asphalt.
Witnesses said locals stole items from the dead men's pockets, and smashed the windows of their white, four-wheel drive civilian car. One man was seen brandishing bloodstained Iraqi dinars he said were taken from the bodies.
"People were taking things from the car. I looked inside and saw two soldiers with blood all over them," said a local fireman who ran to the scene after hearing gunshots.
U.S. troops quickly surrounded the area, in the crowded centre of the Kurdish city, and interrogated bystanders. "They hate the Americans in this area," said a man waiting for petrol near the scene. "They've been doing many raids around here and so it's not surprising they've been attacked."
In Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, a 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb was detonated as their convoy drove past, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel William MacDonald said.
And in Falluja, a restive city in the Sunni Muslim heartland west of Baghdad, witnesses said a roadside bomb injured six Iraqis and another hit a U.S. convoy, without casualties. SUICIDE BOMBS
The attacks came a day after suicide bombers detonated cars packed with explosives outside Baquba's police headquarters and a police station in the nearby town of Khan Bani Saad.
MacDonald said 17 Iraqis were killed in the bombings, one fewer than initially thought.
Since Washington declared major combat in Iraq over on May 1, 185 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action.
Mosul has seen an upsurge in violence in recent weeks. Guerrillas brought down two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters over the city this month, killing 17 American soldiers in the deadliest single strike on U.S. forces since they invaded in March.
On Saturday, a bomb in a cart loaded with oranges exploded in the city as a convoy of three U.S. military vehicles was passing. The convoy was unharmed but two Iraqis were killed.
Southeast of Mosul, in the oil city of Kirkuk, explosions shook the North Oil Company compound late on Saturday, wounding four contractors working for the American services firm Kellogg, Brown & Root, a U.S. spokesman said.
Overnight, witnesses said U.S. fighter jets bombed areas around the town of Samarra, about 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, as coalition forces maintained an offensive against guerrilla targets. PLANE HIT BY MISSILE
Civilian flights to Baghdad were suspended at the weekend after a DHL cargo plane made an emergency landing on Saturday following a direct hit by a missile. Airport officials said a surface-to-air missile hit the plane on its left wing.
It was the first successful strike by guerrillas against fixed-wing aeroplanes in Iraq. Rocket-propelled grenades and shoulder-launched missiles have been fired at others but all have missed -- although five U.S. helicopters have been brought down in the last month, killing 49 soldiers.
In Japan, Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Tokyo, one of Washington's closest allies in Asia, should defy threats and stick to its controversial plan to send troops to Iraq.
The comments followed media reports in Japan that al Qaeda had warned it would infiltrate Tokyo and attack the capital as soon as Japanese troops set foot in Iraq.
In a move to normalise post-war diplomatic ties, Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zerbari announced that Rend Rahim Francke, an Iraqi-American woman and a veteran lobbyist, would become Iraq's ambassador to the United States -- ending 13 years of diplomatic freeze between the two countries.
In southern Iraq, British forces said on Sunday they had detained an Australian man with connections to suspected Saddam Hussein loyalists.
A spokeswoman for coalition forces in the south said the Australian of Iraqi descent was arrested in the port city of Umm Qasr following a raid on a house occupied by suspected supporters of the former regime.