Three American soldiers were killed yesterday by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the US command said. Two other US soldiers died in separate incidents earlier, the command said.

The three who died yesterday were assigned to Multinational Division, Baghdad, but the precise location of the attack was not reported.

A soldier assigned to the 2/28th Brigade Combat Team died on Monday of wounds suffered the day before in Anbar province west of the capital, the military said. Another soldier assigned to the 130th Engineer Brigade was killed on Sunday when his vehicle was hit by a blast near Balad. Another soldier was hurt.

Names of the victims were withheld pending notification of kin.

At least five people were killed, including three policemen, and 13 wounded when a car bomb exploded in the capital's Hay Ur area close to the Immam Redha Shi'ite mosque, a security official said.

Three people were also killed when a bomb went off inside a minibus in Baghdad's Shi'ite dominated Sadr city just minutes after the meeting on Jaafari.

Meanwhile, Shi'ite leaders from the powerful United Iraqi Alliance failed yesterday to decide the fate of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari.

Kurds and Sunni Arabs had rejected his candidacy to head the next government, a key sticking point holding up its formation almost four months after elections, forcing the Shi'ites to meet to decide his fate.

But the Shi'ite alliance leaders broke up the talks aimed at resolving the political impasse, said Bassem Sharif, spokesman of the Fadhila party, one of the members of the Shi'ite alliance.

PHOTO CAPTION