On Friday it announced that two more troops had been killed in "enemy action" in the mainly Sunni western province of Al-Anbar.

The latest deaths took the military's losses since the March 2003 invasion to 2,637, according to an AFP count based on
Pentagon figures.

Baghdad saw some of the worst fighting over the past five days.

On Thursday, a wave of seven synchronised car bomb and rocket attacks killed at least 43 people and wounded another 160 in Shiite and Christian areas like Sadr City and Al-Amin.

The attacks -- which came shortly before the dusk-to-dawn curfew -- saw dozens of men, women and children falling prey to deadly assaults. They will be blamed on Sunni extremists.

The attack in the Al-Amin neighbourhood left 14 people dead after a car bomb exploded in a market busy with shoppers making last-minute purchases before the curfew -- a common target for Sunni militants.

Six more explosive devices, including rockets, were detonated in three areas, killing another 29 people. Two of them hit the capital's most populous Shiite district of Sadr City.

Previous attacks by Sunni insurgents have been avenged by Shiite death squads and tension was high as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from the rival communities went to their respective mosques.

Health officials report that nearly 100 people are killed daily across Iraq in sectarian and insurgent violence.

The latest fighting in Baghdad comes despite a massive security crackdown enforced by Iraqi and US forces since mid-June which has seen all vehicle traffic banned from the streets around the main weekly prayers.

The bloodshed has undermined attempts by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to reconcile the warring Muslim sects.

The latest bout of killing burst out after a meeting last Saturday between Maliki and hundreds of tribal leaders, who agreed to back the Shiite premier's reconcilation plans.

Despite the failure of security forces to rein in the raging violence, Maliki on Thursday said that his troop were ready to take charge of security from British-led forces in the southern province of Dhi Qar this month.

"The transfer of responsibility gives us confidence that we are coming closer to taking over overall security responsibility throughout Iraq," Maliki said, in a statement released by the cabinet office.

Dhi Qar will be the second province to be handed over to Iraqi forces after the July 13 transfer of Al-Muthanna province.

Both provinces lie in Iraq's mainly Shiite south, where British-led forces, who have been in charge since the 2003 invasion, have faced less resistance than their US allies further north.

Iraq is to launch a new joint military headquarters on Saturday to command its navy, air force and 10 army divisions, totaling 115,000 troops.

Iraq's armed forces are currently coordinated by US headquarters.

"They're using everything they can to destroy me, most of all voodoo," one of the notes read, according to police.

Bordes, who was unemployed, lived with Francoise Mercier, 42, and their children, Sweitzer, 2, and Stephanie, 4, in an apartment on Staten Island. Family members told police that the father usually looked after the children while Mercier worked as a nurse's aide.

After Mercier learned Bordes was dead, she rushed home from work to check on her children, and found them in the bathtub, not breathing, police said. Paramedics later pronounced them dead.

One of the suicide notes was found on Bordes' body. Six more were in the home.

Blair has faced constant rumors about when he will step down after he pledged before winning a third successive general election last year that he would not seek a fourth term.

With his popularity plunging, calls have grown within the Labour Party for Blair to set a date for handing over power to his expected successor, finance minister Gordon Brown.

"I have done what no other prime minister has done before me. I've said I'm not going to go on and on and on, and said I'll leave ample time for my successor. Now at some point I think people have to accept that as a reasonable proposition and let me get on with the job," Blair said.

"I think if it is speculation that people are worried about, there is a simple answer -- stop speculating," said Blair, who has just returned from a Caribbean holiday.

Blair, in office for nine years, said members of parliament who "carried on and on" about his leadership really wanted the party to change direction away from Blair's free-market "New Labour" policies, The Times said.

Despite Blair's refusal to give a timetable, the Guardian newspaper quoted sources as saying that Blair's "current thinking" was that he would stand down in the summer of 2007.

Under pressure to set out a transition timetable, Blair promised in May to give his successor ample time to settle in before the next election, expected in 2009.

But the Sunday Telegraph reported in August that Blair planned to stay on for at least another year, longer than many Labour politicians wanted. It said this could cause friction with Brown, who is impatient to take over.

A poll in the Guardian last week said Britain's opposition Conservatives, under leader David Cameron, had opened a nine-point lead over Labour -- enough to give them a slim parliamentary majority if repeated at a general election.

Blair's popularity has plunged after a series of government scandals over sex, sleaze and mismanagement. He has also faced sharp criticism recently -- some of it from Labour politicians -- for failing initially to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas.