The US military yesterday announced the deaths of six of its troops across Iraq, including two pilots of an Apache helicopter that was shot down. The announcement comes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her British counterpart Jack Straw made a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday.

The US military said the bodies of two pilots of the Apache Longbow helicopter, that crashed on Saturday evening after coming under enemy fire, were recovered.

The military also announced the deaths of four more troops since Thursday, including two soldiers killed together late on Saturday by a roadside bomb attack during a foot patrol in central Baghdad.

An American soldier died near Kirkuk, northern Iraq, and the other was killed in combat in the restive western province of Al Anbar.

Frustrated by Iraq's failure to form a government, the chief US and British diplomats told squabbling leaders yesterday that it was time to pick a governing coalition.

Rice was careful to say the US did not want to interfere in the democratic process, yet harped on Prime Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari's failure to organise a unity government.

Shi'ite politicians are going public with demands that Al Jaafari withdraw his candidacy to head the next government. A third Shi'ite MP, Sheikh Jalal Al Deen Al Saghir, called yesterday for Jaafari to withdraw his candidacy to head the next government.

The Iraqi government, meanwhile, announced the arrest of an unidentified aide to Al Qaeda in Iraq's leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi in Baghdad's predominantly western Sunni neighbourhood of Jamaa.

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