Baghdad, July 23 (IANS) An American soldier and two civilians were killed and four injured in separate incidents of violence in Iraq, police and US military said Thursday.

A US military statement said that one of its soldiers was killed in a bomb explosion Wednesday in Diyala province, Xinhua reported.

The latest death brings the number of US soldiers who have been killed in Iraq to about 4,413, since 2003, the report said.

A civilian was killed Thursday when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in central Nineveh’s capital city Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a police source said.

In a separate incident, a cleric of a Sunni mosque was shot dead by gunmen in the Zanjily neighbourhood in western Mosul, the source said.

Sporadic attacks are still common in Iraqi cities more than four months after the country held its landmark parliamentary election which is widely expected to shape the political landscape of the war-torn country.