On Wednesday, at least 101 Iraqis were killed, and the UN reported that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll of the war and one that is sure to be eclipsed when November's dead are counted.

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The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq also said that citizens were fleeing the country at a pace of 100,000 each month, and that at least 1.6 million Iraqis have left since the war began in March 2003.

Life for Iraqis, especially in Baghdad and cities and towns in the center of the country, has become increasingly untenable. Many schools failed to open at all in September, and professionals - especially professors, physicians, politicians and journalists - are falling to sectarian killers at a stunning pace.

Lynchings have been reported as Sunnis and Shiites conduct a merciless campaign of revenge killings. Some Shiite residents in the north Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah claim that militiamen and death squads are holding Sunni captives in warehouses, then slaughtering them at the funerals of Shiites killed in the tit-for-tat murders.

The U.N. figure for the number of killings in October was more than three times the 1,216 tabulated by The Associated Press and nearly 840 more than the 2,870 US service members who have died during the war.

The US military on Thursday reported the deaths of three Marines who were killed while fighting in Anbar province, where many Sunni-Arab insurgents are based.

So far this month, 52 American service members have been killed or died.

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