US deaths in Iraq approach 4,000

by amyjudd | March 22, 2008 at 05:40 pm | 236 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

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Sadly, over this Easter weekend, the families of some soldiers serving in Iraq will be receiving news that their loved one has been killed in yet another roadside bomb just north of Baghdad today.
This brings the US death toll to nearly 4,000 soldiers killed in the five years that they have been fighting in Iraq.

Also Saturday, Iraqi authorities reported that a U.S. airstrike north of the capital killed six members of a U.S.-backed Sunni group — straining relations with America's new allies in the fight against al-Qaida.

Two Iraqi civilians also died in the roadside bombing, which occurred as the Americans were patrolling an area northwest of the capital, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Two of the soldiers were killed in the blast and the third died of wounds, the statement said. The soldiers were assigned to Multinational Division-Baghdad, the statement said, but gave no further details.

The latest deaths brought to 3,996 the number of U.S. service members and Pentagon civilians who have died since the war began on March 20, 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Rocket or mortar fire killed one U.S. soldier and wounded four others Friday south of Baghdad, the military said.