Two US marines were killed and six wounded in a suicide bomb attack on Friday near Camp Fallujah, the main military base outside the flash-point city of the same name, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters here.
"There was a car bomb that was in the vicinity of Camp Fallujah ... Initial reports (were) of two marines killed and six wounded," Kimmitt said.
The attack occurred at 11.10 am (0710 GMT), he said. April has been the bloodiest month for US troops since they invaded Iraq in March 2003.
A Filipino employee has been killed in Iraq, becoming the first civilian from the Philippines to die in the conflict, President Gloria Arroyo said on Friday.
The Filipino leader, facing an election in 10 days, condemned the "terrorist" attack but stressed that her government would maintain its small military and police presence in Iraq.
The first Philippines fatality from the conflict "was a private employee who died in an attack while travelling with other nationals," Arroyo said on local radio.
The dead Filipino was not named, and the government did not give details of the attack.
"His identity is being confirmed so that the next of kin can be immediately informed," Arroyo said.
At least 3,000 Filipino civilians are employed by private contractors engaged by the US-led occupation forces, while 43 Filipino soldiers and eight policemen form part of the occupation.
Assailants shot dead an Iraqi police colonel and tortured and hanged a municipal official in Baghdad on Thursday in separate incidents, a military spokesman said on Friday.
Colonel Ahmad Al-Khazraji was shot dead as he left his offices in downtown Baghdad on Thursday night, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters. The body of the municipal official, Swadi Shatti, was found by his family in the Shiite slum of Sadr City, the General said. A sign was found on him saying "Mehdi army business," said Kimmitt.
"It appeared that he had been beaten, tortured and hung," said Kimmitt.
"It's part of a long-standing attempt on the part of the terrorists, criminals and extremists trying to derail this process towards Iraqi rule over the country.
"We have had more Iraqi security forces killed by hostile fire since the end of hostilities last May than we have had coalition forces," he said.
Sadr City is the site of frequent clashes between the US military and the Mehdi army militia of Shiite firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr.
Hundreds of Iraqi officials and police, associated with the US-led coalition, have been killed by unknown assailants since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
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