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Al-Maliki told Moallem that Damascus should not let its disputes with the United States be played out in Iraq, where the chaos and bloodshed has become "a danger that threatens all, not Iraq only."

Asked about the Syrian's visit, State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said "the problem is not what they say but what they do."

"Certainly what we would like to see the Syrians do is take actions to, among other things, prevent foreign fighters from coming across the border into Iraq; and, again, to back up the positive words that they have with some real concrete steps," Casey said.

Moallem arrived in Iraq on Sunday in the first such high-level visit by a Syrian official since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.

A US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Saturday night and a US Marine died during combat in Anbar province on Sunday, the military said, raising to at least 2,865 the number of US service members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war. This month in Iraq, 47 American service members have been killed or died.

The Iraqi death toll, meanwhile, rose to at least 1,371 for the first 20 days of November - the highest for any month since The Associated Press began tracking the figure in April 2005.

In all, 25 Iraqis were killed Monday in a series of attacks in Baghdad, Ramadi and Baqouba, police said. The bodies of 75 Iraqis who had been kidnapped and tortured also were found on the streets of the capital, in Dujail to the north of Baghdad and in the Tigris River in southern Iraq.

The Iraqi death toll this month is already well above the 1,216 who died in all of October, which had been the deadliest month in Iraq since the AP began its count.

The actual totals are likely considerably higher because many deaths are not reported. Victims in those cases are quickly buried according to Muslim custom and never reach morgues or hospitals to be counted.

Monday's civilian victims included Walid Hassan, an actor and comedian on Al-Sharqiyah TV who was shot while driving in western Baghdad. The motive for his slaying was unknown. Hassan had performed in a comedy series called "Caricature," which mocked coalition forces, insurgents, militias and Iraq's government.

Assailants also shot to death Fulayeh al-Ghurabi, a Shiite professor at Babil University in the province south of Baghdad, as he was driving home at midday, police said.

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