But I Hear We're Making "Good Progress"

The New York Times
October 31, 2005
October Is 4th Deadliest Month for U.S. Forces in Iraq
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 31 - The United States military announced the deaths of seven Americans near Baghdad today, making October the bloodiest month for troops here since January.

Six soldiers and one marine were killed in three separate roadside bomb attacks in two days, the military said in a statement. Four soldiers were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Yusifiya, south of Baghdad, and two more died in a similar blast near Balad, north of the capital. A marine died in a roadside bomb attack on Sunday near Amiriyah, southwest of Baghdad.

The attacks brought the number of Americans killed in October to 92, the highest monthly toll since January, when 106 American troops were killed in violence ahead of national elections here.

That death toll has been surpassed only two other times since the war began: in November 2004, when 137 Americans died, and in April 2004, when 135 died. Those months featured major conflicts with, respectively, Sunni Arab rebels in Falluja, west of Baghdad, and Shiites loyal to a religious leader in Najaf, in the south.

Military officials provided few details about the deaths, saying only that all had been killed in roadside bomb attacks. Insurgents have grown increasingly expert at building bombs, commanders here say, and such devices are now the leading cause of death among American troops.

Insurgents, for example, tie together multiple artillery rounds and add highly flammable fuel for bigger fires. Blasts now penetrate large troop carriers - 14 marines were killed in Haditha, in western Iraq, in August by an explosive device made from a bomb weighing 500 pounds, a size of ordnance more commonly dropped by airplane.

Insurgents also time blasts to hit rescue workers arriving to collect the wounded after an initial explosion. Gunnery Sgt. Jose C. Soto, head of a bomb disposal team with the Third Battalion, Seventh Marines in Ramadi, the war-torn capital of Anbar, said that insurgent skills for making what the military calls improvised explosive devices had improved tremendously in recent months.

"This is a better-trained group of insurgents," he said last month in Ramadi. "They're using more complex I.E.D.'s. They're going for the catastrophic kills."

The attacks came as American forces struck at insurgents in western Iraq, near the border with Syria, a common entry point into Iraq for foreign militants. Before dawn today, Marines backed by jets attacked insurgent positions near the Syrian border, destroying two safe houses believed use by Al Qaeda figures, The Associated Press reported.

The military made no mention of casualties, but The A.P., citing Associated Press Television News, said video from the scene showed residents crying over the bodies of about six people.

In a separate operation on Saturday, the military said it had killed a senior Al Qaeda leader, a Saudi citizen, known as Abu Saud. Marines shot and killed the militant and three other men with him in a car in Ubeidi, close to the border. Abu Saud had been bringing foreign fighters and suicide bombers into Iraq and had arrived most recently to shore up the Qaeda leadership, the military said.

The military has conducted at least 10 military operations in western Anbar Province this year, and commanders here argue that the fighting has kept up pressure on militants and helped reduce the number of suicide bombings in Baghdad since spring.

As of last week, suicide attacks had dropped to about 22 a month, down from 58 in June, according to figures provided by the American military.

In other violence, a suicide car bomber detonated his payload near an American convoy in Falluja, an eyewitness said. The military did not report any casualties. In Baghdad, a mortar fell near a police academy close to the Ministry of Interior, killing one civilian and wounding four, a Ministry of Interior official said.

In southern Baghdad, American and Iraqi forces carried out raids on Friday and Saturday, detaining 49 suspected insurgents and seizing a large cache of weapons from a crawl space underneath a bathtub, the military said today.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company