Three U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers were killed during combat operations on Thursday in western Anbar province, an al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Monday.

No other details were available about the deaths, which took to 3,651 the number of U.S. soldiers killed since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

U.S. forces have been working this year with Sunni Arab tribal leaders, tired of the indiscriminate killings by al Qaeda, to recruit local police units to combat the Sunni Islamist group.

Al Qaeda is blamed for stoking sectarian hatred and violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs, who were dominant under Saddam.

Separately, the U.S. military said it had killed eight suspected insurgents and detained 40 others in operations targeting al Qaeda in Iraq in Anbar and neighboring Salahuddin province on Sunday and Monday.

An extra 9,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops were sent to Anbar earlier in July in a new operation targeting militants in the Sunni Arab province.

Violence had ebbed since the plan to use local tribes in the fight against al Qaeda forced insurgents to move to other provinces, particularly Diyala north of Baghdad.