The additional US troops, according to the New York Times, are expected to be part of a revised security plan, which was partially announced by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday.

The US military announced Sunday the death of a soldier in small arms fire near Baghdad the previous day, which took its losses in Iraq to 3,000 since the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

Of the casualties, 2,415 were killed in combat across Iraq, while 585 died due to "non-hostile" causes, according to the Pentagon.

More than 22,700 soldiers have been wounded since the invasion.

Of the 3,000 dead, 139 died during the actual invasion between March 19 and April 30, 2003.

The Pentagon said some 44 percent of US casualties have come from roadside bombs, or improvised-explosive-devices (IEDs) as the military calls them.

Small arms fire, including that from dreaded snipers that have increasingly made an appearance in the past year, accounts for just under 20 percent of the casualties.

The bulk of losses have been in the restive Sunni province of Al-Anbar with battleground cities such as Ramadi, Fallujah as well as many other towns on the Euphrates river valley.

After Anbar, Baghdad has emerged as the most dangerous battlefield for the forces.

To secure Baghdad, Bush is now expected to send 20,000 additional troops even if it means possible more casualties for the military, the New York Times said.

Maliki, according to the report, has agreed to send three more Iraqi brigades to Baghdad over the next 45 days to support the "surge" in the 132,000 strong US garrison in Iraq.

Bush's new strategy, to be rolled out in a televised address possibly as soon as Wednesday, follows weeks of introspection for the administration, after Democrats routed Republicans in November's congressional elections.

Maliki said on Saturday that local forces would play a bigger role in protecting Baghdad from militias and insurgents.

"We will rely on our armed forces to forcefully implement the plan and the multinational forces will support our forces," he said.

Maliki said the revised security plan will crack down on all those who break the law, regardless of their "sectarian or political affiliations".

Soon after his announcement of the revised plan, a fierce firefight erupted in central Baghdad between Iraqi troops and insurgents, which left at least 30 militants dead, state television reported.

Iraqi and US forces have been implementing a joint security plan since June 2006 but this has failed to bring stability to the capital, where according to the UN more than 100 people are killed daily.

On Sunday, another four people died in two roadside bombs in Baghdad, a security official said.

Meanwhile, the United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Saturday "strongly" urged the Iraqi government to suspend executions of two of Saddam's henchmen after the bungled hanging of the former dictator himself a week ago.

Ban "strongly urged the government of Iraq to grant a stay of execution to those whose death sentences may be carried out in the near future."

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar are to be hanged soon. They were found guilty along with Saddam of executing 148 Shiite civilians from Dujail, north of Baghdad, in the 1980s.

The December 30 hanging of Saddam sparked an outcry after the leak of an unofficial, grisly cellphone video of his execution that showed a guard taunting the former dictator moments before his death.

Maliki however is determined to carry out the sentences.

"We will go ahead in applying the law against those who abused the Iraqi people and whose hands are stained with the blood of innocents," he said Saturday.

The date for the hangings has not yet been fixed, a Shiite lawmaker told AFP Sunday.

Meanwhile, insurgents Sunday killed at least 12 Iraqis, nine of them in Baghdad, a day after premier Nuri al-Maliki announced a revised security plan to restore stability in the capital, security officials said.

Four people were killed and five wounded when several mortars exploded near a car service company, Al-Rasheed, in Baghdad's eastern Karada district, a security official said.

Two bodyguards of Hamed al-Shammari, a senior official in the education ministry, were killed when his convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Two bodyguards were also wounded in the bombing.

Two civilians were killed when another roadside bomb exploded near central Baghdad's university of technology. One person was wounded.

In another attack, gunmen shot dead a doctor from Baghdad's Yarmuk hospital.

In Hilla, south of Baghdad, a car bomb killed one woman in a market and wounded 13 others, including several women and children, police said.

In the central city of Diwaniyah one Iraqi soldier was killed by gunmen, while another soldier was killed in a roadside bombing east of the Shiite city of Kut.

Two bodies were also found in the Tigris river near Kut.

Maliki said Saturday that Iraqi military commanders will be given more authority to take quick action in combatting violence in Baghdad.

His declaration came as US President George W Bush was finalising a new strategy for curbing the violence in Iraq.