US death toll in Iraq tops new heights

BAGHDAD (Iraq)—At least 36 Iraqis died Tuesday in bombings, officials said, including a coordinated strike that killed 25 in western Baghdad. Separately, the deaths of six U.S. soldiers pushed the American toll beyond the number of victims in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The three coordinated car bombs in western Baghdad injured at least 55 people, a doctor at Yarmouk hospital, where the victims were taken, said on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. The attacks occurred in a mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhood.
In separate attacks, a bomb exploded in a central Baghdad market, killing four people and wounding 15 others, police said. Two roadside bombs targeted an Iraqi police patrol in an eastern neighborhood of the capital, killing four policemen and injuring 12 people. In Kirkuk, 180 miles north of the Iraqi capital, another roadside bomb killed three civilians — including an 8-year-old girl — and wounded six other people, police said. The U.S. military on Tuesday announced the deaths of six more American soldiers, pushing the U.S. military death toll since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 — five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The milestone came with military announcement that three soldiers had been killed Monday. Three more service members were killed Tuesday in roadside bombings near Baghdad, the military said.
President Bush has said that the Iraq war is part of the United States’ post-Sept. 11 approach to threats abroad. Going on offense against enemies before they could harm Americans meant removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, pursuing members of al-Qaida and seeking regime change in Iraq, Bush has said.
Democratic leaders have said the Bush administration has gotten the U.S. bogged down in Iraq when there was no evidence of links to the Sept. 11 attacks, detracting from efforts against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.
The AP count of those killed includes at least seven military civilians. Prior to the deaths announced Tuesday, the AP count was 15 higher than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Friday. At least 2,377 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers. American troops fought gunmen in a Shiite militia stronghold in east Baghdad on Tuesday, witnesses said. Fighters loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were engaged in the clashes with U.S. forces in and near Sadr City, an official in al-Sadr’s office said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. There was no immediate word on casualties.
British soldiers were on alert for reprisals a day after they raided a police station in the southern city of Basra, killing seven gunmen in an effort to stop renegade Iraqi officers from executing their prisoners.
“We fully expect more attacks on our bases and on Basra stations, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary,” Maj. Charlie Burbridge, a military spokesman, said Tuesday. “But this is part of a long-term rehabilitation of the Iraqi police service, to make it more effective and more accountable, and ultimately provide better security for the people of Basra.”—Agencies