Washington ? The U.S. military death toll in Iraq rose by at least three Monday and the November total is approaching the highest for any month since the American-led invasion was launched in March 2003.

At least 133 U.S. troops have died in Iraq so far this month — only the second time it has topped 100 in any month. The deadliest month was last April when 135 U.S. troops died as the insurgency flared in Sunni-dominated Fallujah, where dozens of U.S. troops died this month.

The Pentagon’s official death toll for Iraq stood at 1,251 on Monday, but that did not include two soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and another killed in a vehicle accident. When the month began, the death toll stood at 1,121, the Pentagon said.

Also Monday, U.S. troops in Fallujah reported finding nearly as many homemade explosives over the past three weeks as had been uncovered throughout Iraq in the previous four months.

In the recent action, the troops found at least 650 homemade bombs, Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said Monday. That compares with 722 found throughout the country between July 1 and October 31. The military calls such bombs improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

The IEDs, rigged to detonate by remote control and often hidden along roadways used by U.S. forces, have been the insurgents’ deadliest weapon. On Monday, for example, two U.S. soldiers were killed and three others wounded in Baghdad when their patrol hit an IED, officials said.

Combat injuries also have increased this month due to the fierce fighting in Fallujah. Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington reported Monday that it received 32 additional battle casualties from Iraq over the past two weeks. One was in critical condition. All 32 had been treated earlier at the Army’s main hospital in Europe, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

Since U.S. forces invaded Fallujah on Nov. 8 to regain control from insurgents, they have found about a dozen IED “factories,” a number of vehicles being modified to serve as car bombs, and at least 10 surface-to-air missiles capable of downing aircraft, Whitman said.

More than half of the approximately 100 mosques in Fallujah were used as fighting positions or weapon storage sites, Whitman said, citing a U.S. military report that has not been released publicly.

U.S. officials knew that insurgents had used Fallujah as a haven from which to plan and organize resources for attacks in Baghdad and other cities in the so-called Sunni Triangle north and west of the capital, but the amount of weapons found exceeded expectations.

Whitman said other discoveries in Fallujah include:

• Plastic explosives and TNT.
• A hand-held Global Positioning System receiver for use in navigation.
• Makeshift shoulder-fired rocket launchers, rocket-propelled grenades, 122mm rockets and thousands of mortar rounds.
• An anti-aircraft artillery gun.
• More than 200 major weapons storage areas.