"According to initial reports, an individual dressed in an Iraqi army uniform fired on the Coalition forces and was killed in the incident" around 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Mosul, the statement said.

It called the incident "a small arms fire attack at a combat outpost."

A Mosul police officer identified the assailant as Hassan al-Dulaimi, a soldier who also served as the imam of a mosque at an Iraqi army training centre south of the city, the capital of Nineveh province.

The latest deaths bring to 4,283 the number of American losses since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to an AFP count based on the independent website icasualties.org.

In February an American soldier was killed and three others wounded when two Iraqi policemen shot at them at a Mosul police station in an attack that also killed an Iraqi translator and wounded another.

Mosul, an important regional centre with a mixed population of Kurds, Sunnis and Christians, has remained in the grip of insurgent violence even as unrest has subsided elsewhere in Iraq over the past year.

US troops could stay in Mosul beyond a June 30 deadline for withdrawing from Iraqi cities if Baghdad requests it, the commander of US forces in the northern province, Colonel Gary Volesky, said in April.

The US military regards Mosul as the last bastion of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, following its rout from Baghdad and western Iraq in 2007.

The Iraqi army launched a major offensive in Mosul in May 2008, but insurgent attacks have continued to take a toll.

Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium