BAGHDAD, 3 January 2007 — A US marine killed an Iraqi soldier after a row at a combined security post in Fallujah, the US military reported yesterday. The incident occurred on Saturday when the two had an altercation at a post at the Fallujah government center in the restive province of Al-Anbar. “The naval criminal investigative service has initiated a criminal investigation,” the military said.

The marine — who has been assigned to administrative duties — was from the 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5, while the Iraqi soldier was from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division. US marines and Iraqi soldiers have manned combined security posts since the arrival of the marine unit several months ago in Fallujah. “Marines and Iraqis from the two units continue to live, eat, and fight alongside each other,” said coalition spokesman Marine Lt. Col. Bryan Salas. “This will not impact our mission to continue the transition of the security responsibility to the Iraqi Army.”

In a separate incident, gunmen attacked the car of a provincial councilman northeast of Baghdad, killing the man and three of his relatives, police said yesterday. The incident occurred Monday night on a road in Iraq’s Diyala province, northeast of the Iraqi capital. Ali Majeed Salboukh, a member of the Diyala provincial council, was killed along with his brother and two other relatives, police said.

Yesterday, a roadside bomb killed three civilians and wounded seven others in eastern Baghdad, police said. Three of those injured were policemen. The bomb was hidden in a pile of garbage in the Camp Sarah neighborhood, a mixed area, police said.

Five mortar shells hit residential areas of western Baghdad around noon yesterday, wounding four civilians, police said.

In raids, also yesterday, US troops killed a suspected Al-Qaeda weapons dealer and two other people in Baghdad, and detained more than 60 suspects over the past week, the US military said. Among those captured by Iraqi forces were a suspected “foreign-fighter facilitator” and members of a bomb-making cell, the military said in a statement. The Iraqi raids, backed by US troops, took place north of the Euphrates river and east of Ramadi in Iraq’s western Anbar province, it said.

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush grappled yesterday with ways to fix his Iraq strategy, amid warnings even among his Republican congressional allies that they oppose escalating the unpopular war.

Bush, who was expected to showcase his new proposals in a speech by Jan. 15, has been considering “all options” — including what some have dubbed a “surge” or “sustained surge” in the number of US troops in Iraq.