Thanksgiving 2005 will be a bitter memory for the families of six U.S. servicemembers serving in Iraq.

A U.S. Marine was killed Saturday, a soldier was killed Friday, three were killed and one died Thursday of injuries received Wednesday. All lost their lives as a result of improvised explosive devices.

Iraq's parliamentary elections are less than three weeks away, and insurgents intent on disrupting them have launched more car bomb attacks Saturday, in which at least ten people were killed.

A U.S. Marine engaged in combat operations near Camp Taqaddum, Iraq, was killed Saturday in an improvised explosive device, officials in Iraq announced Sunday.

An American soldier was killed Friday in the western town of Hit. The soldier assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), was killed in an improvised explosive device attack while conducting combat operations, military officials reported.

Spc. Gregory L. Tull, 20, of Pocahontas, Iowa, meantime was killed Thursday in the Al Anbar Province,when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations. Tull was assigned to the Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 194th Field Artillery, Storm Lake, Iowa.

Also killed Thursday were Staff Sgt. Steven C. Reynolds, 32, of Jordan, N.Y., and Pfc. Marc A. Delgado, 21, of Lithia, Fla. They died in Baghdad when an improvised explosive device detonated near their HMMWV causing it to flip into a canal. They were assigned to the Army's 170th Military Police Company, 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade, Fort Lewis, Wash.

Spc. Javier A. Villanueva, 25, of Temple, Texas, died in Al Asad, Iraq, on Thursday, of injuries sustained in Hit, Iraq, on Wednesday, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his dismounted patrol during combat operations. Villanueva was assigned to the Army's 2nd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Irwin, Calif.

In central Baghdad, police say four civilians were killed when a car bomb exploded as a U.S. military convoy passed.

North of the capital, on the outskirts of Samarra, a suicide bomber drove his truck into a gas station, setting off a fiery explosion that killed at least five people and injured a dozen others.

The violence comes as about 150 Iraqi army soldiers and 400 coalition troops including U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team attached to the 2nd Marine Division kicked off Operation Tigers on the weekend in eastern Ramadi. Operation Tigers is the fourth in a series of disruption operations executed by the Iraqi army and coalition forces to set the conditions for a successful Dec. 15 election in the capital city of Iraq's Anbar province, officials said.

The previous operations were called Panthers, Bruins and Lions. Since they began, the Ramadi operations have resulted in the death or capture of numerous insurgents and the discovery of several weapons caches that included surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, rockets, mortar rounds, artillery rounds, hand grenades, land mines, small arms, small-arms ammunition and IED-making equipment, officials said.