Baghdad, Iraq- Iraq's parliament reopened Tuesday after a summer recess and voted to extend a state of emergency for a month because of unrelenting sectarian violence, while the nation's president predicted bloodshed will be quelled by the end of next year.
The U.S. military announced the deaths of three American servicemen, bringing to 10 the number of coalition soldiers killed in the previous two days - eight Americans and two Britons.
Iraq's state of emergency, which has been in place for almost two years, covers every area except the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. It grants security forces the power to impose curfews and make arrests without warrants.
It has been renewed every month since first being authorized in November 2004, hours before U.S. and Iraqi troops launched a big offensive to drive insurgents out of Fallujah, one of the main cities in the restive Anbar region west of Baghdad.
Two U.S. Marines and one sailor were killed in Anbar "due to enemy action" Monday, the U.S. military command reported. Five other Americans had previously been reported killed Sunday and Monday, and two British soldiers died from a roadside bombing in the south Monday.
Police said 15 Iraqis died in violence across the country Tuesday.
Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed by suicide bombings, shootings and mortar and rocket attacks over the past two weeks. But President Jalal Talabani expressed optimism that fighting would stop before 2007 ends, and he said Iraqi forces will be able to handle any remaining violence.
"I don't think fighting will continue until then if the steps of national reconciliation go according to plan," he said after talking with visiting British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's reconciliation plan seeks to bridge religious, ethnic and political divisions that have been tearing at Iraq with daily violence.
Asked by reporters when Britain's 7,000 soldiers might be able to leave Iraq, Talabani said "by the end of 2007."
"We've achieved good success in building our forces and equipping them with the necessary arms," he said, adding that "once violence declines, we will not need the presence of multinational forces in Iraq."