Sons, center and right, mourn father killed in Sadr City air strike, 05 May 2008

The U.S. military in Iraq says U.S. forces killed nine Shi'ite insurgents during battles in the Sadr City and Mansur districts of Baghdad late Sunday and early Monday .

The clashes came hours after the wife of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani escaped unhurt from a roadside bomb attack that hit her motorcade in Baghdad.

The motorcade was taking Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed to a cultural event when the bomb went off in the capital's Karrada district.

In Tehran Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Hosseini said Iran will not hold a fourth round of talks with the U.S. on security in Iraq, as long as U.S. forces continue to attack Shi'ite militias in Baghdad.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, held three rounds of talks in Baghdad last year in the first direct diplomatic contacts between Washington and Tehran in nearly 30 years.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, and Reuters.