[Marinir] War's toll passes 3, 500 U.S. service members (June 2007)

[Yap Hong Gie]

=> At least 3,501 U.S. service members have been killed since the beginning 
of the war,

=> at least 23 American deaths during the first six days of June



http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/06/08/a2.int.war.0608.p1.php?section=nation_world

War's toll passes 3,500 U.S. service members
By Kim Gamel
The Associated Press
Published: Friday, June 8, 2007

BAGHDAD - The four-year U.S. military death toll in Iraq passed 3,500 after 
a soldier was reported killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

A British soldier was also shot to death Thursday in southern Iraq, as 
Western forces find themselves increasingly vulnerable under a new strategy 
to take the fight to the enemy.

The British ambassador to Iraq, meanwhile, signaled that his government was 
ready to talk to those behind the abduction of five Britons in Baghdad last 
month.

Iraqi officials have said they believe the Britons were taken by the Mahdi 
Army militia, which is largely loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada 
al-Sadr.

In a rare televised interview, al-Sadr blamed the United States for Iraq's 
woes, often referring to it as ``the occupier'' and accusing it of being 
behind the sectarian violence, the growing schism between Iraq's majority 
Shiites and once-dominant Sunni Arabs and economic hardships.

 ``We are now facing a brutal Western assault against Islam,'' he said, 
draped in his traditional black robe and turban. ``This agenda must be 
countered with a cultural resistance.''


23 U.S. deaths this month

The mounting U.S. casualties, most from makeshift bombs placed in potholes 
on roads or in fields where troops conduct foot patrols, come as American 
troops work with Iraqi forces on the streets and in remote outposts as part 
of a joint crackdown on sectarian violence.

A U.S. soldier was killed and two others were wounded Wednesday when a 
roadside bomb exploded during combat operations in a southwestern section of 
Baghdad, the military said Thursday.

At least 3,501 U.S. service members have been killed since the beginning of 
the war, according to an Associated Press count.

They include at least 23 American deaths during the first six days of June - 
an average of almost four per day, a similar pace to that in May.

American troop deaths reached 127 in May, making it the third-deadliest 
month since the war started in March 2003.

The average is nearly double the approximately two a day killed in June 
2006.

A British soldier also was shot to death and three others were wounded 
Thursday while on patrol in southern Iraq, according to Britain's Ministry 
of Defense, pushing to at least 150 the number of deaths reported by the 
British military.

Separately, the British ambassador to Iraq, Dominic Asquith, appealed to the 
kidnappers of five Britons to release them or open negotiations.

The five - four security guards and a consultant - were abducted from the 
Iraqi Finance Ministry on May 29 by about 40 heavily armed men who then rode 
off with them in the direction of the sprawling Shiite district of Sadr 
City.

Iraqi officials say the Mahdi Army may have grabbed the men in retaliation 
for the killing by British forces of the militia's commander in the southern 
city of Basra.


Sectarian killings continue

Despite the crackdown, bombings, shootings, mortar attacks and 
execution-style killings left at least 63 Iraqis dead nationwide Thursday.

They included 32 unidentified men who were handcuffed, blindfolded and shot 
to death in Baghdad - the apparent victims of so-called sectarian death 
squads usually run by Shiite militias such as the Mahdi Army.

Iraqi journalist Sahar al-Haidari, 45, was shot to death while she was 
waiting for a taxi Thursday in a predominantly Sunni area in the northern 
city of Mosul. Al-Haidari covered political and cultural news for the 
independent Voices of Iraq news agency and was the second employee of the 
organization to be killed in little more than a week.