U.S. Death Toll Tops 1,800 In Iraq
Seven U.S. Marines were killed in two separate attacks west of Baghdad, where American forces are trying to seal a major infiltration route for foreign fighters, the military said Tuesday. Their deaths pushed the U.S. military death toll in Iraq past 1,800.
Six of the Marines were killed Monday in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. The seventh Marine died Monday in a suicide car bombing in Hit, 50 miles southeast of Haditha.
At least 25 American service members have been killed in Iraq since July 24 — all but two in combat. The Iraqi Defense Ministry said that since the beginning of April, more than 2,700 Iraqis — about half of them civilians — had been killed in insurgency-related incidents.
The U.S. command said the six Marines were "engaged by terrorists and killed by small-arms fire" in Haditha, a town on the Euphrates River valley, which U.S. and Iraqi officials have identified as a major route for foreign fighters slipping into Iraq.
"Five Marines were killed in the initial attack," the statement said. "One was unaccounted for and his body later found and safely recovered a few kilometers away. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation."
In other developments:
Following the attack in Haditha, residents said several masked gunmen identifying themselves as the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, a major Sunni Arab insurgent group, appeared in the public market carrying helmets, flak jackets and automatic rifles they said belonged to U.S. troops.
They distributed flyers claiming to have killed 10 American service members.
"They were on a mountain near the town so we went up, surrounded them and asked them to surrender," the statement said. "They did not surrender so we killed them."
A similar claim in the name of Ansar al-Sunnah was posted on an Islamic Web site.
In Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded at the entrance to a highway tunnel in central Baghdad as a U.S. military convoy was passing, damaging two Humvees. At least 29 Iraqis were wounded, officials said. But there was no report of any American casualties.
At least 1,801 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,382 died as a result of hostile action. The figures include five military civilians.
The toll among Iraqis, however, has been much higher.
On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said that since April 1, a total of 2,709 Iraqis have died in violent attacks, including 1,413 civilians. The rest were soldiers, police and insurgents.
The death toll for July was 656, the ministry said. That was the second deadliest month since the Shiite-dominated government was installed — surpassed only by May's figure of 967 deaths.
However, records-keeping in Iraq is irregular, especially in areas where the insurgents are strong, and the real figure is probably higher.
Violence has accelerated as the Iraqis struggle to finish a new constitution — which the United States sees as crucial toward maintaining political momentum and undermining the insurgency.
An Iraqi committee is racing to finish the charter in time for an Aug. 15 deadline for parliamentary approval. After that, voters will decide whether to ratify the document in a referendum in mid-October, followed by a new election in December.