Two marines and a sailor were killed in fighting with insurgents in Iraq's western province of Anbar which once was a stronghold of Sunni insurgents, the U.S. military said on Friday, Xinhua reported.
The incident occurred on Thursday while the soldiers' unit was conducting combat operations against "enemy forces" in an area in the province, the military said in a statement without providing more details.
The names of the deceased soldiers were being withheld pending notification of next of kin, it added.
Anbar province has been relatively calm after Sunni tribes and anti-U.S. insurgent groups turn up against al-Qaida in Iraq network, cooperating with the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces.
Rifts emerged between predominantly Sunni insurgent groups and the al-Qaida in Iraq organization after the latter adopted a hardline Islam and exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
So far, at least 18 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in April, bringing the U.S. death toll to about 4,281 since the outbreak of U.S.-led invasion to Iraq in 2003 according to media count based on Pentagon figures.
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