BAGHDAD — The US military said 14 American troops have died in multiple attacks, including five killed yesterday in a single roadside bombing in Baghdad.Elsewhere, a suicide truck bomber struck the Sulaiman Bek city hall in a predominantly Sunni area of northern Iraq, killing at least 16 people and wounding 67, an Iraqi commander said.

Thousands of protesters also rallied in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, waving Iraqi flags and the black and green Shiite banners with slogans such as “Death to al-Qaida” in a show of unity following the bombing that brought down the twin minarets of a revered mosque in Samarra.

The latest US deaths raised to at least 3,545 the number of American troops who have died since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Gen. Peter Pace, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference that “we can expect ... there’s going to be tough fighting ahead” as a result of the influx of US reinforcements to Iraq.

He said the military expects that “this surge is going to result in more contact (with insurgents) and, therefore, more casualties.”

The deadliest attack was a roadside bomb that struck a convoy in northeastern Baghdad on Thursday, killing five US soldiers, three Iraqi civilians and one Iraqi interpreter, the military said.

A rocket-propelled grenade struck a vehicle in northern Baghdad about 12.30 p.m. yesterday, killing one soldier and wounding three others, another statement said.

On Wednesday, another powerful roadside bomb killed four US soldiers and wounded another in western Baghdad, while two Marines died in fighting in Anbar province, to the west of the capital.

Southwest of Baghdad, two soldiers were killed and four were wounded Tuesday when explosions struck near their vehicle, the military said, correcting an earlier statement that gave the date of the attack as Wednesday.

Counting a previously announced US fatality that occurred Tuesday, the latest military statements meant that 15 troops were killed over a three-day period.

The explosion in Sulaiman Bek occurred about 10.30 a.m., and killed 16 people, Maj. Gen. Anwar Hama Amin said. The commander of the Iraqi army’s 2nd Brigade blamed the blast on al-Qaida, saying it was the latest in a series of strikes by the terror network against government officials, whom they accuse of collaborating with the US and the Iraqi government.

Sulaiman Bek is about 100 miles north of the capital and just outside the border with Diyala province, where thousands of US troops are engaged in an offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq.

Amin said the target apparently was the mayor, who has lost five relatives in previous assassination attempts. The blast heavily damaged the city hall, along with several nearby houses and stores.

Thamir Mohammed, a 28-year-old newlywed, said he was on his way to city hall to do some paperwork to get a new ration card when the blast occurred, knocking him off his feet and wounding him in the head and legs.

“I was walking in the street heading to the city hall when a truck drove up and parked outside. The driver got out and was just outside the truck when the explosion took place,” Mohammed said from his hospital bed in nearby Tuz Khormato.

It was the latest in a series of attacks as al-Qaida fights back as the US intensifies operations against the terror network in Baghdad and elsewhere around the capital.

A US airstrike aimed at a booby-trapped house in one of the centres of those offensives, the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, missed its target and “accidentally hit” another structure, wounding 11 civilians on Wednesday, the military said, adding the incident was under investigation.

US troops had cleared the area to destroy a house containing explosives believed placed by al-Qaida, but “the bomb missed its intended target and struck another structure,” the military said. “Reports indicate that 11 civilians were injured.”