US November death toll near highest
Fuelled by fierce fighting in Fallujah and rebel counterattacks elsewhere in Iraq, the US military death toll for November is approaching the highest for any month of the war so far.
At least 134 US troops died in November, according to casualty reports made available earlier today.
The total rose to 134 when a US Army soldier died from injuries sustained after a roadside bomb exploded late yesterday next to his patrol near the town of Alazu, north of Baghdad.
The worst month was April when 135 died as insurgence flared in Fallujah and elsewhere in the so-called Sunni Triangle where US forces and their Iraqi allies lost a large measure of control.
On November 8, US forces launched an offensive to retake Fallujah, and have engaged in tough fighting in other cities since then. More than 50 US troops have been killed in Fallujah since, although the Pentagon has not provided a casualty count for Fallujah for more than a week.
From the viewpoint of the United States and Iraqis who are striving to restore stability, the casualty trend since the interim Iraqi government was put in power June 28 has been troubling.
Each month’s death toll has been higher than the last, with the single exception of October, when it was 63.
The monthly totals grew from 42 in June to 54 in July, to 65 in August and to 80 in September.
The Pentagon’s official death toll for Iraq, dating to the start of the war, stood at 1,251 yesterday, but that did not include three soldiers killed by roadside bombs in the Baghdad area and another killed in a vehicle accident. When the month began, the official death toll stood at 1,121.
It was not clear whether the bombing deaths of two Marines south of Baghdad on Sunday were included in the overall count.
Combat injuries increased in November due to the fierce fighting in Fallujah.
Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington said it received news of 32 additional battle casualties from Iraq over the past two weeks. One was in critical condition. All 32 had been treated earlier at the Army’s largest hospital in Europe, Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany.
Some of the most severe injuries – and many of the deaths – among US troops in Iraq are inflicted by homemade bombs or IEDs.
US forces have put extraordinary effort into countering the IED threat and found nearly as many homemade explosives over the past three weeks as had been uncovered throughout Iraq in the previous four months combined.
In recent action in Fallujah, troops found at least 650 homemade bombs, Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said. That compares with 722 found throughout the country between July 1 and October 31.
The IEDs are rigged to detonate by remote control and often are hidden along roadways used by US forces, to deadly effect.
Since US forces invaded Fallujah to regain control, they have found about a dozen IED “factories”, a number of vehicles being modified to serve as car bombs, and at least 10 surface-to-air missiles capable of downing aircraft, Whitman said.
More than half of the approximately 100 mosques in Fallujah were used as fighting positions or weapons storage sites, Whitman said.
US officials knew rebels had used Fallujah as a haven from which to organise resources for attacks in Baghdad and other cities in the Sunni Triangle north and west of the capital, but said the amount of weapons found exceeded expectations.
