During the latest anti-insurgent operation in Ramadi, a marine soldier died of wounds sustained when a rocket struck his vehicle on Thursday, the Pentagon announced yesterday.

The city 110km west of Baghdad was the scene of rebel action Thursday but the US command minimised the seriousness of the appearance of armed men in broad daylight, saying it was a largely symbolic action for propaganda purposes.

On Friday, three soldiers died in a car accident in Balad, north of Baghdad.

This news comes following Friday's announcement of the killing of 10 marines on Thursday during a night patrol near Fallujah, 50km west of the capital, not far from Ramadi.

That incident marks the single largest military combat death since August.

A total 2,125 US service personnel have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, the Pentagon said.

Eleven Iraqi soldiers were killed and two wounded yesterday when a roadside bomb detonated next to their convoy and they were ambushed by insurgents, an army officer said.

The attack took place near Adhaim area, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, said the officer, who asked not to be identified for security reasons.

The report follows the announcement of a roadside bombing that killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 others on a foot patrol near Fallujah.

IMPACT ON VOTING

Yesterday, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric, issued instructions to followers urging them to vote in the election and to cast their ballots in favour of religious candidates from the principle lists.

While falling short of a religious edict or fatwa, the instructions are likely to have an impact on voting and looked like a coded endorsement of the main Shi'ite bloc contesting the elections, the United Iraqi Alliance, winner of January's poll.

According to Sistani's office, the reclusive scholar has instructed believers to do three things: turn out to vote; avoid voting for any list whose leader is not religious; and avoid voting for "weak" lists so as not to split the Shi'ite vote.

Sistani, who is in his late 70s and rarely appears or speaks in public, holds huge sway over Iraq's 60 percent Shi'ite majority. His instructions could dent the hopes of secular Shi'ite candidates such as Iyad Allawi and Ahmad Chalabi.

Allawi, Iraq's first prime minister after the fall of Saddam Hussein, is mounting a strong challenge to the ruling Shi'ite Islamist coalition, which was originally formed at Sistani's urging to contest the first post-Saddam election in January.

Yesterday's ambush on the Iraqi troops occurred in Udaim, a volatile town near Baquba, and is the latest in a long series of attacks to target Iraq's fledgling police and army forces.

Sunni Arabs form the backbone of the insurgency, which is waging a violent campaign to destabilise the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government and drive U.S.-led forces out of Iraq.