Mahdi Army militiamen celebrate on Friday the withdrawal of British troops from Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. British soldiers withdrew Sunday from their last base in Basra and moved to the local airport. The move ended the British military's permanent presence in the city.

Baghdad ? The U.S. military on Friday announced the deaths of seven more American troops in combat, including four in Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold where U.S. officials say a tribal revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq has brought dramatic improvements in security.

Two of Iraq’s top political leaders, meanwhile, raised objections to the planned execution of three former Saddam Hussein lieutenants – all Sunnis – convicted of massacring Kurds in the late 1980s.

A hardline Sunni clerical group warned the executions would become a “negative factor” in efforts to reconcile Sunnis and Shiites.

A U.S. statement said four Marines assigned to Multinational Force-West were killed Thursday in combat in Anbar, but gave no further details.

Three soldiers from the Army’s Task Force Lightning died Thursday when a bomb exploded near their vehicle in Ninevah, a northern province that includes Iraq’s third-largest city, Mosul, the military also said.

Britain’s Defense Ministry also announced Friday that a British soldier was killed two days earlier, but news of the death was kept secret for security reasons. The British statement did not say how or where the soldier died.

However, the British news agency Press Association said it was believed the soldier was killed in central Iraq rather than the south where most of Britain’s 5,500 soldiers are based. British soldiers serve in a U.S.-run special operations command that hunts al-Qaida in Iraq leaders in central Iraq.

A total of 169 British military or civilian employees have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to the ministry.

The U.S. statement did not say where the Marines were killed in Anbar, a vast, mostly desert province that extends from the western outskirts of Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, in Anbar, insurgents blew up two suspension bridges on the main highway leading to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, a police intelligence officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The blasts against the Anbar bridges occurred about dawn in a sparsely populated area about 100 miles west of Baghdad, according to the National Iraqi News Agency, quoting an unidentified official of the highway patrol.

The intelligence officer said the attacks occurred near a spot where the road forks – with one part heading to Saudi Arabia and the other to Jordan. He said five bridges have been hit by insurgents in Anbar so far this year.