US casualties mount in Iraq
Friday, June 22, 2007
FOURTEEN United States soldiers have been killed in two days of fighting, the military announced yesterday, as US-led troops continued to press simultaneous offensives in and around Baghdad.
The news came hours after a suicide bomber exploded an oil tanker south of Iraq's oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing 15 people and wounding 66, including policemen and local politicians.
The bomber blew up the tanker outside police headquarters and a cluster of government buildings in Suleiman Beg, about 90km from the northern city of Kirkuk, police and hospital officials said.
"Several of the wounded are city council members and police officers, including the chief of police in Suleiman Beg, Hassan Ali Al-Bayati," a local hospital official said.
The latest attack — two days after a Baghdad bomb killed 87 people — was carried out as the US military pressed an air and ground assault on suspected al-Qaeda strongholds north of Baghdad.
The military said it had killed 41 people it described as insurgents and had destroyed some of their hideouts.
But as US troops have channelled a recently completed troop "surge" into a belt of insurgent strongholds around the capital they have met stiff resistance and suffered increasing casualties.
Yesterday five US soldiers, an Iraqi interpreter, and three Iraqi civilians were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in northeastern Baghdad, the military said in a statement.
A sixth soldier and two Iraqi civilians were wounded in the attack.
Another soldier was killed and three others wounded in Baghdad yesterday when their vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Last Wednesday six soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks in western Baghdad, and two marines were killed in combat operations in the western Anbar province.
The latest deaths bring total US casualties for this month alone to 59, with at least 3,536 since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
Meanwhile, around 10,000 US and Iraqi troops backed by attack helicopters and armoured vehicles continued to battle alleged al-Qaeda militants in the restive province of Diyala.
Operation Arrowhead Ripper is viewed as the biggest since the November 2004 operation against the former rebel town of Fallujah and is aimed at destroying the group's strongholds in the province.
"Our combined forces have begun destroying al-Qaeda operatives and their resources in and around Diyala province," US commander Brigadier General Mick Bednarek said in a statement released overnight.
The forces destroyed three "enemy safe houses" and a number of roadside bombs, it said, adding ground forces also found a house booby-trapped with homemade explosives in the Khatoon neighbourhood near Baquba.
The military said air support was called in to destroy the house but a bomb missed its target and struck another nearby structure wounding 11 civilians.
The original target was later destroyed with missiles which produced a "large secondary explosion", it said.AFP
The news came hours after a suicide bomber exploded an oil tanker south of Iraq's oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing 15 people and wounding 66, including policemen and local politicians.
The bomber blew up the tanker outside police headquarters and a cluster of government buildings in Suleiman Beg, about 90km from the northern city of Kirkuk, police and hospital officials said.
"Several of the wounded are city council members and police officers, including the chief of police in Suleiman Beg, Hassan Ali Al-Bayati," a local hospital official said.
The latest attack — two days after a Baghdad bomb killed 87 people — was carried out as the US military pressed an air and ground assault on suspected al-Qaeda strongholds north of Baghdad.
The military said it had killed 41 people it described as insurgents and had destroyed some of their hideouts.
But as US troops have channelled a recently completed troop "surge" into a belt of insurgent strongholds around the capital they have met stiff resistance and suffered increasing casualties.
Yesterday five US soldiers, an Iraqi interpreter, and three Iraqi civilians were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in northeastern Baghdad, the military said in a statement.
A sixth soldier and two Iraqi civilians were wounded in the attack.
Another soldier was killed and three others wounded in Baghdad yesterday when their vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Last Wednesday six soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks in western Baghdad, and two marines were killed in combat operations in the western Anbar province.
The latest deaths bring total US casualties for this month alone to 59, with at least 3,536 since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
Meanwhile, around 10,000 US and Iraqi troops backed by attack helicopters and armoured vehicles continued to battle alleged al-Qaeda militants in the restive province of Diyala.
Operation Arrowhead Ripper is viewed as the biggest since the November 2004 operation against the former rebel town of Fallujah and is aimed at destroying the group's strongholds in the province.
"Our combined forces have begun destroying al-Qaeda operatives and their resources in and around Diyala province," US commander Brigadier General Mick Bednarek said in a statement released overnight.
The forces destroyed three "enemy safe houses" and a number of roadside bombs, it said, adding ground forces also found a house booby-trapped with homemade explosives in the Khatoon neighbourhood near Baquba.
The military said air support was called in to destroy the house but a bomb missed its target and struck another nearby structure wounding 11 civilians.
The original target was later destroyed with missiles which produced a "large secondary explosion", it said.AFP
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