A deadly October: 69 U.S. troops killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military reported Wednesday that 10 American troops had been killed the day before, raising the death toll so far this month to 69 and putting October on track to be the deadliest month for coalition forces since January 2005.

The nine U.S. soldiers and one Marine were killed by roadside bombs and enemy fire in and around the capital on Tuesday, the military reported.

The sharp rise in deaths comes as the U.S. has increased the number of troops in the Baghdad area to try to stop the spiraling sectarian and insurgent violence engulfing the city of some 6 million people.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, consulted with Iraq's Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the holy city of Najaf in a bid to enlist support for efforts to build political consensus and tackle the Sunni-Shiite killings.

Four U.S. soldiers died when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle at about 6:50 a.m. Tuesday west of Baghdad, the military said in a brief statement.

Three soldiers attached to Task Force Lightning, assigned to the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, were killed and one wounded during combat Tuesday in Diyala province east of Baghdad.

Another soldier died around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday when suspected insurgents attacked his patrol in northern Baghdad, and one more soldier died in another roadside bombing north of the capital in the afternoon.

A Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 also died from injuries sustained during fighting Tuesday in the western province of Anbar, a hotbed of the insurgency, according to the military.

According to an Associated Press count, October also is on the way to being the deadliest month for Iraqis since the AP began tracking deaths in April 2005. In October, 767 Iraqis have been killed in war-related violence, an average of 45 every day.

That compares to an average daily death toll of about 27 since April 2005. The AP count includes civilians, government officials and police and security forces, and is considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported.

The violence continued Wednesday when a bomb planted on the main highway between the southern cities of Amarah and Basra killed Ali Qassim al-Tamimi, head of intelligence for the Maysan provincial police force, along with four bodyguards, police Capt. Hussein Karim said.

Elsewhere, local Sunni and Shiite leaders were meeting in an attempt to resolve the fate of more than 40 people missing since their 13-car convoy was waylaid at a checkpoint on Sunday outside Balad, where almost 100 people were killed in five days of sectarian fighting.

Police said the hijacked cars had been diverted to the nearby Shiite militant stronghold of al-Nebaiyi on Balad's outskirts.

Al-Maliki's call on al-Sistani underscored the influence wielded by the spiritual leader on the Shiite-dominated government and comes as the prime minister faces growing U.S. pressure to show more resolve in dealing with the daily carnage of sectarian bombings and attacks.

"I came (to see al-Sistani) so that the security and political situation can be stabilized, allowing the government to turn its attention to reconstruction," al-Maliki told reporters after the meeting.

He also met with al-Sadr, whose support was crucial to the prime minister's election to his job earlier this year.

The anti-U.S. cleric, whose militia is blamed for much of the sectarian violence in Iraq, appeared to soften his opposition to plans by the Shiite bloc in parliament to introduce a federal system in Iraq that would let provinces join together in autonomous regions similar to the one established by the Kurds in northern Iraq in 1991.

Al-Sadr, like Sunni Arab politicians, had maintained that federalism could lead to the eventual breakup of Iraq.

But on Wednesday he said the decision should be left to the Iraqi people to make.

"Federalism, like anything else, is left up to the Iraqi people. If they approve it, then there should be no problem," he told reporters after meeting al-Maliki in Najaf.

Al-Maliki's talks with al-Sistani and al-Sadr in Najaf coincided with the announcement in Baghdad that a much-anticipated national reconciliation conference would be start in the Iraqi capital Nov. 4.

For the U.S. military, October's death toll is on a pace that, if continued, would make the month the deadliest for coalition forces since January 2005, when 107 U.S. troops died. The war's deadliest month for U.S. forces was November 2004, when 137 troops died. At least 2,785 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an AP count.

The U.S. military has said the upsurge in casualties was expected as American forces, joined by their Iraqi counterparts, flooded into the capital and its environs in August to conduct a crackdown on insurgent and militia killings.

The military credits the crackdown with wiping out many insurgent cell and confiscation of vast amounts of explosives, weapons and ammunition. But patrolling Baghdad's violent streets has also left U.S. forces highly vulnerable, yet again, to insurgent attacks and roadside bombings.

The fighting in Balad also forced U.S. forces to return to patrolling the streets of the predominantly Shiite city after Iraq's best-trained soldiers proved unable to stem a series of revenge killings sparked by the murder on Friday of 17 Shiite construction workers. The U.S. military had turned over control of the surrounding province north of Baghdad to the Iraqi army a month ago, and American forces apparently did not redeploy there until Monday, when the worst of the bloodletting had ended.

Minority Sunnis, who absorbed most of the brutality in the city of 80,000 people, have been fleeing across the Tigris River in small boats.

On the outskirts of the city, two fuel trucks were attacked and burned and Shiite militiamen clashed with residents of Duluiyah, a predominantly Sunni city on the east bank of the Tigris. Militants were blocking food and fuel trucks from entering Duluiyah.

this month's rate is about 4 per day. To reach 3,000 at this rate will take about 55 days. This is closer to 2 months, not "a little over a month"

At 3,000 Protest at Local Army Recruitment Offices.

DO NOT GO TO THE FEDERAL BUILDING.

It is a dumb place to protest. Cameras on every building, under covers and FBI spies everywhere. People drive by at 50 mph and don’t see you. And if they close the street its just you and the cops. Go somewhere else and do something to stop the war. No more sign waving. No more federal building protests. No don’t go there, it is a trap.

What the FUCK is wrong with you clowns who think that parading around like a bunch of fucking spineless cowards politely asking these Christofascist terrorists to stop murdering innocent people and committing treason against America is going to make them stop?

Parading around in tight little circles pretending you're fighting for America against these Christofascist terrorist butchers and guess where that gets you: right here where we are. Playing pretend by protesting, picketing, and marching DOESN'T WORK! It never has.

I think we passed 10,000 a year ago.

If the freedom fighters in Iraq continue killing the American invaders at this rate we should hit 3000 dead Americans in a about 2 months. So plan now for the protest in December.

U.S. October death toll in Iraq hits 91

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. officials said Tuesday Iraqi leaders have agreed to develop a timeline by the end of the year for progress in stabilizing Iraq, and Iraqi forces should be able to take full control of security in the country in the next 12 to 18 months with "some level" of American support.

Even as October marked the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Iraq this year, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said he felt the United States should continue to focus on drawing down American forces in the country.

On Tuesday, the military announced the deaths of four more U.S. troops, raising the month's toll to 91. At least 2,801 members of the U.S. military have died since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Regardless, Gen. George Casey said he would not hesitate to ask for more troops if he felt they were necessary.



He appeared at a rare joint news conference with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. A power failure in the Green Zone briefly cut off the broadcast of the remarks.

"We are about 75 percent of the way through a three-step process in building those (Iraqi) forces. It is going to take another 12 to 18 months or so till I believe the Iraqi security forces are completely capable of taking over responsibility for their own security that's still coupled with some level of support from us," Casey said.

With violence in Iraq at staggering levels, the United States is battling on both the military and political fronts to tame growing chaos in regions where Sunni insurgent violence now is compounded by sectarian killing.

Khalilzad said the Iraqi government had agreed by the end of the year to develop a timeline for progress. At the same time, he declared, the United States needed to redouble its efforts to succeed in Iraq.



"Iraq leaders have agreed to a timeline for making the hard decisions needed to resolve these issues," Khalilzad said. "Iraqi leaders must step up to achieve key political and security milestones on which they've agreed."

Details of the milestones were not spelled out, but Khalizad mentioned several areas in which progress would be measured, including devising a system to share the country's oil wealth among all religious and ethnic groups.

His comments came a day after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. government and military officials were working with Iraq to set broad time frames for when Iraqis can take over 16 provinces that are still under the control of U.S. troops. He said officials were not talking about penalizing the Iraqis if they don't hit certain benchmarks.

The Iraqis have taken control of two southern provinces but have been slow to take the lead in others, particularly those around Baghdad and in the volatile regions north and west of the capital city. Rumsfeld said specific target dates probably will not be set. Instead, he said there might be a broader time frame - such as a one- to three-month window - for the Iraqis to take control of certain provinces.

Rumsfeld said the United States was looking at when the Iraqis would move close to setting up a reconciliation process to help quell worsening sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

Violence has spiked during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Casey said the Iraqi army lost 300 men during the fasting month ending this week.

The American military announced the deaths in combat of two U.S. Marines and a sailor Monday in the insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, west of Baghdad. It also said a soldier died Tuesday after his patrol was struck by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad.

October is on course to surpass the October 2005 death toll of 96. Before that the deadliest months were January 2005, at 107; November 2004 at 137 and April 2004, at 135.

The U.S. military also carried out house-to-house searches in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood for an Army translator missing after reportedly being kidnapped while visiting relatives, but said Tuesday they had found no sign of him.

The military said the U.S. soldier, who was not identified by name, was last seen Monday in the heavily guarded Green Zone in central Baghdad.

Khalilzad said the government should transform the committee that was formed to insure that Saddam Hussein's loyalists held no important national positions into an organization that would seek entice them back to the political process.

That was seen as a bow to the Sunni insurgency. Sunnis comprise a minority of the population in mostly Shiite Iraq but were dominant under Saddam's regime.

"We are helping Iraqi leaders complete a national compact. ...Political forces must make difficult decisions in the coming weeks to reach agreements on numbers of outstanding issues on which Iraqis differ," Khalilzad said.

Casey and Khalilzad castigated Iran and Syria, Iraq's neighbors east and west, for trying to undermine the American effort to stabilize the country, with Casey saying both countries had been "decidedly unhelpful."

Khalilzad said radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had agreed through Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to U.S. demands that the government develop a timeline that would include the eradication of militias.

Al-Sadr controls the Mahdi Army, the country's most feared band of armed men, largely drawn from the downtrodden, poor and unemployed in Baghdad's Sadr City, a Shiite slum enclave.

The U.S. ambassador said the United States was engaging with insurgent leaders, trying to persuade them to lay down their weapons and join the political process. He also announced the Americans had sought and received agreement from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan - all largely Sunni Muslim countries - to intercede with the insurgency.

The military said the missing soldier was a linguist with the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Baghdad. American troops who raided Baghdad's al-Furat TV on Monday said they were looking for an abducted American officer of Iraqi descent who went to join relatives in Karradah.

"We will leverage all available coalition resources to find this soldier," Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his loved ones, and we are working for his safe return."

Sectarian violence persisted in the southern city of Amarah, with at least two more policemen shot to death Tuesday. Militiamen loyal to al-Sadr have been hunting officers aligned with a rival group in a new outbreak of Shiite-on-Shiite revenge attacks in the city.

The attacks came despite a public call by al-Sadr to halt the killings, suggesting that splinter groups were developing within his militia.

"I totally reject any Shiite-Shiite fighting or Sunni-Shiite sectarian fighting in Iraq under any pretext," al-Sadr said in an address to supporters Tuesday marking the beginning of the three-day festival of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. "Protecting Iraq is our main goal and the expulsion of the occupation troops from the country is our objective too."

Sunni Muslims marked the start of the festival on Monday.

Police elsewhere reported that 11 Iraqis were killed in bombings and shootings, and 14 bullet-riddled bodies were found - many showing signs of torture.