October 18, 2006
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More U.S. Deaths in Iraq
Iraqi police officers secure the site of a car bomb attack in Baghdad. Photograph: Samir Mizban/AP
Sharp rise in US death rate in IraqAssociated Press
Wednesday October 18, 2006Guardian Unlimited
The US military confirmed today that nine troops had been killed in fighting and bombings in Iraq yesterday, raising this month’s death toll for American forces to 67.If the rate of US fatalities continues at the same level throughout this month, it will make October the deadliest for coalition forces since January 2005, when 107 US troops died.
In more violence today, a roadside bomb killed a provincial police intelligence chief in southern Iraq and four of his bodyguards, police said.
Ali Qassim al-Tamimi, head of intelligence for the Maysan provincial police force, and the bodyguards were killed by a bomb planted on the main road between the cities of Amara and Basra. Two car bombs also exploded in Baghdad, injuring at least eight people, police said.
In the city of Balad, about 50 miles north-east of the capital, local Sunni and Shia leaders were meeting in an attempt to resolve the fate of a group of people who have apparently been kidnapped.
More than 40 people have been missing since their 13-car convoy was waylaid at a checkpoint on Sunday outside Balad, where almost 100 people have been killed in five days of sectarian fighting. Police said the hijacked cars had been diverted to the nearby Shia militant stronghold of al-Nebaiyi on Balad’s outskirts.
A brief statement from the US military today said four US troops died early yesterday, when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle west of Baghdad.
Three US soldiers were killed and one wounded during combat in Diyala province, east of Baghdad. Another US soldier was killed when suspected insurgents attacked his patrol in northern Baghdad.
A US marine also died from injuries sustained during fighting in al-Anbar province.
The fighting in Balad forced US troops to return to patrolling the streets of the predominantly Shia city after Iraq’s best-trained soldiers proved unable to stem a series of revenge killings sparked by the murder on Friday of 17 Shia construction workers.
The US military had turned over control of the surrounding province north of Baghdad to Iraq’s 4th Army a month ago, and American forces apparently did not redeploy there until Monday, when the worst of the violence had ended.
Minority Sunnis, who were the focus of most of the violence in the city of around 80,000 people, have been fleeing across the Tigris river in small boats.
On the outskirts of the city, two fuel trucks were attacked and burned and Shia militiamen clashed with residents of Duluiya, a predominantly Sunni city on the east bank of the Tigris.
Shia militants have been blocking food and fuel trucks from entering Duluiya.
Some commentators said the violence in the area was an omen for the level of hostilities if Iraq was divided into three federal states – controlled by Shias in the south, Sunnis in the centre and Kurds in the north.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
