5 US troops killed in wave of attacks in Iraq
Middle East Desk Report

BAGHDAD—Five more American soldiers have died in Iraq, the US military announced, four days before voting in congressional elections that have been dominated by controversy over the war. The American military also killed around 13 “terrorists” south of Baghdad, while three Iraqis, including a tribal sheikh and a mosque imam were murdered by gunmen in separate incidents.
Three US soldiers were killed in a single attack on Thursday afternoon when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Baghdad, the war-torn capital where 15,000 US personnel are battling to contain a vicious sectarian conflict. On the same day, a marine was killed in Anbar province in the west of the country, the heartland of the Al-Qaeda militant group in Iraq, a US statement said, while confirming another death “due to non-combat causes” on Wednesday.
The deaths brought to 2,822 the number of US troops to have died in Iraq since the March 2003 US invasion, and the mounting toll gives more ammunition to critics of President George W. Bush’s strategy. Daily Iraqi civilian casualties from the war have fallen by about a fifth since the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, but they still far outstrip US dead and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government remains fragile.
Baghdad seemed quiet on Friday morning as the bitterly divided Sunni and Shiite communities prepared to head to their separate mosques to mark the weekly Muslim day of prayers under a total vehicle curfew. But reports of unrest filtered in from other parts of the country.
US forces backed by air support approached two buildings near Mahmudiyah, a short distance south of Baghdad, where the suspected Al-Qaeda militants were hiding. They called on those inside to surrender, the military said. When the suspects refused to do so, the US troops entered the building and found five armed suspects, one of them in a explosive vest. “Coalition forces engaged and killed these five terrorists,” a military statement said Friday.
Then, approximately eight more suspects attempted to flee the scene and were shot dead by air and ground forces, it said, adding the assault was aimed at capturing an Al-Qaeda operative. Meanwhile, Sheikh Nahab Omran from the Shiite Bani Hassan tribe in the Kafal district near the southern town of Hilla was killed by gunmen, police said. Jassim Mohammed Ahmed, imam of the northern city of Kirkuk’s biggest Sunni mosque was killed by gunmen in the city’s Gharnata neighbourhood. A fuel station employee was also killed west of Kirkuk by gunmen.
Civilian deaths run at around 100 per day, according to the latest UN figures, although the Iraqi government now refuses to release up-to-date tolls. Against such a backdrop, and with unexplained gunfire heard late into the night in central Baghdad on Thursday, Bush’s Republican party is facing a tough poll challenge from its Democratic opposition in Tuesday’s vote.