BAGHDAD, 24 June 2007 — The US military announced the deaths of eight more US troops in Iraq yesterday, including four in a single roadside bomb attack northwest of Baghdad. The four soldiers were killed and their Iraqi interpreter wounded when the bomb detonated near their vehicle during combat operations yesterday, the military said.
An airman and three other soldiers were also reported dead yesterday, taking US losses in this month alone to 68. The airman died of wounds suffered when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in the northern city of Tikrit.
A roadside bomb, followed by small arms fire, killed two US soldiers and wounded three in eastern Baghdad yesterday while another soldier died the same day due to a “nonbattle” cause, the military said.
US and Iraqi troops captured two senior Al-Qaeda militants and seven other operatives yesterday in Diyala province, an Iraqi commander said, as an offensive to clear the volatile area of insurgents entered its fifth day. The US military also cracked down elsewhere in Iraq, saying in a statement that seven other Al-Qaeda fighters were killed and 10 suspects detained in raids in Tikrit, east of Fallujah, south of Baghdad and in Mosul.
Roadside bombs, including EFPs and other makeshift devices used by Sunni and Shiite militants alike, are the No. 1 killer of foreign troops in Iraq. At least 20 US troops have been killed in Iraq this week — all but five from wounds suffered from improvised explosive devices, the term the military uses for roadside bombs.
The British military also said yesterday that a British soldier had died of wounds suffered the day before in a roadside bombing in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The death raised to at least 153 the number of British troops killed since the war started in March 2003.
Violence also continued to target Iraqi forces. Gunmen stormed a school building being used by commandos sent to reinforce security in the northern Sunni city of Samarra, killing two officers and wounding six other people, including five civilians, in a 45 minute gunbattle, police and hospital officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
US and Iraqi forces say they have killed 90 Al-Qaeda fighters around Baghdad in the past five days, during one of the biggest combined offensives against the Sunni Islamist group since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. US airstrikes yesterday killed seven suspected Al-Qaeda fighters in Tikrit in Salahuddin province and near Fallujah, the US military said in a statement announcing the latest raids.
