[Marinir] [AP] More military deaths - 08 Jul '07

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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wodead085286056jul08,0,6906690.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print

World
More military deaths
8 Americans, 1 Brit are killed during offensive to pacify Iraq capital so
government can quell insurgency
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 8, 2007


BAGHDAD - The U.S. military reported yesterday that eight more American
service members have been killed in fighting in Baghdad and western Anbar
province, reflecting the increased U.S. casualties that have come with new
offensives in the region.

In addition, a British soldier was killed in fighting with Shia militias
overnight Friday in the southern city of Basra.

Washington has directed the U.S. military to work at pacifying the capital
and its surroundings, hoping the calm will give Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki's government time to take key political steps toward encouraging
Sunni Arabs to turn away from support of the insurgency. Attacks have fallen
in recent weeks in much of Baghdad, although a suicide car bomber yesterday
blasted an Iraqi army patrol in an eastern commercial district, killing five
Iraqi soldiers and a civilian, police said.

Roadside bombings killed five U.S. soldiers in the capital on Friday and
another the day before, the U.S. military said in its latest statements on
U.S. casualties. Two Marines were killed in fighting Friday in western Anbar
province, it said.

In the far south of Iraq, one British soldier was killed and three were
wounded when they came under heavy attack by militants in Basra, the British
military said yesterday. A soldier from Fiji died in a noncombat related
incident, the British military said, but no further information was
available, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Britain has withdrawn hundreds of troops, leaving a force of around 5,500
based mainly on the fringes of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles
southeast of Baghdad. British bases come under frequent mortar attacks from
Shia militias.


The U.S. has about 155,000 troops in Iraq. According to icasualties.org, an
independent, nonprofit Web site that tracks war casualties, 3,601 American
troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003 - 23 of them
during the first week of July. The British toll is 158 and other coalition
forces combined have lost 128.

According to Defense Department figures, 35,638 troops had been wounded
or medically evacuated from Iraq by the end of June - 29,160 of them Army,
4,186 Marines, 1,279 Air Force and 1,013 Navy.