14 U.S. Troops Killed In Iraq
The military announced Thursday the deaths of 14 U.S. troops in Iraq, including five soldiers killed by a single roadside bomb in Northeast Baghdad.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Lee Packnett in Baghdad told CBSNews.com that the roadside blast also left three Iraqi troops and an interpreter dead.
A rocket-propelled grenade struck a vehicle in northern Baghdad Thursday afternoon, killing one soldier and wounding three others, another statement said.
On Wednesday, four U.S. soldiers were killed when their convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad, according to Packnett.
Southwest of Baghdad, two Task Force Marne soldiers were killed and four were wounded Wednesday when explosions struck near their vehicle, according to a statement issued earlier Thursday.
Two Marines assigned to Multi-National Force — West also were killed Wednesday while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, Packnett said.
None of the troops names were immediately released, pending family notification.
The deaths raised to at least 3,545 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Meanwhile, a U.S. air strike aimed at a booby-trapped house in Baqouba missed its target and "accidentally hit" another structure, wounding 11 civilians, the military said, adding the incident was under investigation.
U.S. troops had cleared the area to destroy a house containing explosives believed placed by al Qaeda, but "the bomb missed its intended target and struck another structure," the military said. "Reports indicate that 11 civilians were injured."
The initial target was later destroyed by a Hellfire missile, producing a large secondary explosion, according to the statement.
A spokesman for the 1920s Revolution Brigades, a nationalist Sunni insurgent group that has begun cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi forces in the fight against al Qaeda in Diyala, said the air strike mistakenly struck a building being used as a headquarters by the group. The spokesman, who declined to be identified due to security concerns, said two members were killed and four were wounded.
Hospital officials said ambulances were bringing dozens of bodies of militants who have been killed from the western half of the city, which was under a strict curfew.
Ten thousand U.S. and Iraqi troops are trying to wipe out an al Qaeda stronghold in Baqouba, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.
But Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the ground force commander, visited the city Thursday and said most of al Qaeda's senior leaders managed to escape, leaving behind a maze of deadly booby traps, adds Martin.
The latest military report on the Baqouba offensive said U.S.-led forces had killed 41 insurgents, discovered five weapons caches and destroyed 25 bombs and five booby-trapped houses.
In other developments:
Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim al-Rubaie of the Iraqi army in Diyala, said that overall the offensive that began Monday in Diyala was going well and operations were focused Thursday on the areas of Jurf al-Milih and the northern part of the Baqouba market, which has been the site of several execution-style killings by al Qaeda in recent weeks.
Also Thursday, Gates said extending deployments of U.S. troops now in Iraq beyond the current 15 months was a "worst-case scenario" and that he didn't anticipate it happening.
He also told a Pentagon news conference he couldn't say how long American forces would have to stay at increased levels in the effort to secure Baghdad.
Meanwhile, a suicide truck bomber struck the city hall in a predominantly Sunni area in northern Iraq on Thursday, killing at least 13 people and wounding 70, an Iraqi commander said.
The explosion occurred in the town of Sulaiman Bek, located 100 miles north of the capital and just outside the border with Diyala province, where thousands of U.S. troops are engaged in an offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq.
The local Iraqi army commander blamed al Qaeda for the bombing, saying it was the latest in a series of strikes by the terror network against government officials, whom they accuse of collaborating with the U.S. and the Iraqi government.
Maj. Gen. Anwar Hama Amin, the commander of the Iraqi army's 2nd Brigade who gave the casualty toll, said the target apparently was the mayor, who has lost five relatives in previous assassination attempts. The blast heavily damaged the city hall, along with several nearby houses and stores.
Thamir Mohammed, a 28-year-old newlywed, said he was on his way to city hall to do some paperwork to get a new ration card now that he has a family when the blast occurred, knocking him off his feet and wounding him in the head and legs.
"I was walking in the street heading to the city hall when a truck drove up and parked outside. The driver got out and was just outside the truck when the explosion took place," Mohammed said from his hospital bed in nearby Tuz Khormato.
It was the latest in a series of attacks as al Qaeda fights back as the U.S. intensifies operations against the terror network in Baghdad and on all four points of the compass around the capital.
Violence persisted in Baghdad, with a series of mortars or rockets slamming into the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies and major Iraqi government headquarters. A huge plume of black smoke billowed into the sky from the sprawling complex on the west bank of the Tigris River and helicopters buzzed overhead after about nine blasts occurred in quick succession.
At least one mortar round struck a parking lot used by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his security detail, an official from the prime minister's office said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.
The U.S. Embassy confirmed there were rounds of indirect fire, the military term for rockets or mortars, but said it did not immediately have information about casualties or more details.
A recent increase in mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone has raised new concern about the security of thousands of U.S. soldiers and foreign contractors, as well Iraqis.