Iraqi fighters mounted a series of attacks on US troops in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing three Iraqis and wounding at least 12 people including five American soldiers. A hand grenade was thrown at two US vehicles in the centre of town in the afternoon. Hospital officials said the blast killed a boy and wounded at least seven Iraqis. The US military said one soldier was wounded. "Seven or eight people were wounded," said Dr Omar Farouk, who treated the victims at the Arazi hospital. "One 10-year old boy died from head wounds before he arrived." Later, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a US convoy in southern Mosul. Witnesses said the grenade fell short of the convoy and killed two Iraqi men in a civilian car. The US army said one soldier was also wounded. A separate similar attack wounded two US soldiers in the city, and another soldier was wounded in a roadside bomb attack, the army said. Attacks by Iraqi resistance have shown increasing audacity. On Monday and Tuesday evenings, guerillas fired mortars or rockets at the heart of the US-led administration's complex in Baghdad, in bold attacks that underlined American difficulties in bringing the Iraqi capital under control. The rising death toll has intensified political pressure on US President George Bush, and a series of suicide bombings has prompted many aid workers to leave the country. US officials said in Washington that the Marine Corps, which played a central role in toppling Saddam Hussein last spring, will return to Iraq as part of a US troop rotation next year. Since the Marines' departure from Iraq in September, the military effort to stabilise and rebuild Iraq has fallen almost entirely to the army, plus multinational units led by Britain and Poland. Also included in the next US rotation will be thousands of newly-mobilised National Guard and Reserve troops as well as active duty Army units such as the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas, and the 1st Infantry Division in Germany, according to officials. On the diplomatic front, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan chief Jalal Talabani, who holds this month's rotating Governing Council presidency, said he would go to Turkey on November 19 as part of a tour also taking in Iran and Syria. "The question of sending Turkish soldiers is closed, as the Turkish president (Ahmet Necdet Sezer) said," Talabani said in Baghdad. "I will go to Turkey later this month to ease the atmosphere." Turkey's parliament authorised the deployment of troops last month, but the plan was put on hold following opposition from the Governing Council. Washington said last week the plan was still on the agenda, contrary to Sezer's statement that the subject was "closed." **PHOTO CAPTION*** An unidentified soldier kneels as soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division's 501st Signal Battalion came together in Mosul on Monday Nov. 3, 2003 to remember Spc. Maurice J. Johnson, who was killed by an improvised explosive device in Mosul, Iraq, on November 1. (AP Photo/US Army, 101st Airborne)