U.S. Troop Toll In Iraq Tops 1,900
The U.S. military said Tuesday that four U.S. soldiers died in two roadside bombings near the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi and a fifth died in a blast north of Baghdad, pushing the toll of American forces killed in Iraq past 1,900.
Also Tuesday, a suicide bomber killed four other Americans — a diplomatic security agent and three private security agents — in the northern city of Mosul, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Four of the soldiers were killed in two separate bomb attacks Monday during combat operations in Ramadi, a volatile city 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. The victims were U.S. Army soldiers attached to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.
The fifth soldier, from the 18th Military Police Brigade, was killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb 75 miles north of the capital, the military said.
As of Tuesday, 1,904 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 1,483 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
In other developments:
Ramadi, a city of about 350,000, has been the scene of intense but sporadic fighting since the insurgency gained strength and began its offensive against U.S. forces during the summer of 2003.
The Euphrates River city is the capital of Anbar Province, a huge region that stretches east from Baghdad to the Saudi, Jordanian and Syrian borders. Many cities, towns and villages along the river are insurgent strongholds, where Saddam Hussein loyalists have teamed with infiltrating foreign fighters of al Qaeda in Iraq to battle the Americans and U.S.-trained Iraqi army and police.
There have been reports of fighting in the region since Thursday, when al Qaeda in Iraq said in an Internet posting that its forces and the Americans had engaged in heavy combat.
In recent weeks, rebel bombs have been responsible for 70 percent to 80 percent of American soldiers killed or wounded, according to U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Steven Boylan.
Since the start of the war, about 32 percent of American military deaths have been from improvised explosives, suicide bombs or other such blasts — compared with about 48 percent in firefights and other combat. About 19 percent died in accidents.
The Sunni-dominated insurgency has conducted a rampage of violent attacks since a suicide bomber blew himself up amid laborers gathered for day work in Baghdad, killing 112 people, mostly Shiites. Thirteen more bombings in the next 10 hours produced a staggering toll of 167 dead, the bloodiest day in the capital since the invasion.
Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility, and its leader, Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared war on the country's Shiite majority.
A spokesman for Iraq's prime minister, meanwhile, described as "very unfortunate" an incident in the southern city of Basra in which British armored vehicles broke down the wall of a jail to try to free two British soldiers who were later found in the custody of local militiamen elsewhere in the city.
"My understanding is, first, it happened very quickly. Second, there is lack of discipline in the whole area regarding this matter," said Haydar al-Abadi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. "It is (a) very unfortunate development that the British forces should try to release their soldiers the way it happened."
British authorities said their soldiers were being held illegally and that their captors had refused an order from the Iraqi Interior Minister for their release. The commander of the operation to free them sought to minimize the extent of destruction at the jail.
Photos from the jail Tuesday showed a concrete wall broken through, several cars crushed — apparently by armored vehicles — and prefabricated structures demolished.
Mohammed al-Waili, the governor of Basra province, condemned the British for raiding the prison, an act he called "barbaric, savage and irresponsible."
British Defense Minister John Reid defended the action as "absolutely right."