The number of US military deaths in the Iraq war has reached
2,500, the Pentagon said Thursday, more than three years into a
conflict that finds US and allied foreign forces locked in a
struggle with a resilient insurgency.
In addition, the Pentagon said 18,490 US troops have been
wounded in the war, which began in March 2003 with a US-led
invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed.
On an average day in the war, about two US troops are killed. In
the average month, about 64 US troops are killed.
Defence analysts noted that US deaths in Iraq, while
significant, are far fewer than in other protracted US wars since
World War II. In the Viet Nam War, 58,000 US troops died. In the
Korean War, 54,000 died.
Roadside bombs, known by the military as improvised explosive
devices, are the biggest cause of US casualties. Ham said despite
good progress in detecting roadside bombs and the insurgents
responsible for making and planting them, the overall numbers of
these attacks have increased over the past several months. Car
bombs also remain a deadly threat.
The deadliest month of the war was November 2004, when 137 US
troops died in a month when US forces conducted a fierce offensive
in the city of Falluja in the western Anbar province to deny Sunni
Muslim insurgents a safe haven.
US fatalities had dropped in five straight months from last
November through this March, as insurgents appeared to focus more
of their violence on Iraqi civilians and American-trained Iraqi
government security forces.
But the US death tolls in April and May were above average, and
the Pentagon has acknowledged a recent surge in insurgent
violence.
New Al-Qaida leader identified
The US military said the man claiming to be the new al-Qaida in
Iraq leader is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to
al-Qaida's No 2 leader.
Major General William Caldwell, a US military spokesman in
Baghdad, said al-Masri apparently is the same person as a man
identified by the nom de guerre Abu Hamza al-Muhajer who has
claimed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and vowed to avenge
him in threatening Web statements in recent days.
The Afghanistan-trained Al-Masri, an explosives expert, was a
key figure in the al-Qaida in Iraq network and was long responsible
for facilitating the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into
Baghdad, Caldwell said at a news conference.
He has been a terrorist since 1982, "beginning with his
involvement in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was led by (Osama
bin Laden's deputy Ayman) al-Zawahri," Caldwell said.
The spokesman added that raids in April and May in southern
Baghdad recovered material that confirmed his high-level
involvement in the facilitation of foreign fighters.
"Al-masri's intimate knowledge of al-Qaida in Iraq and his close
relationship with (al-Zarqawi's) operations will undoubtedly help
facilitate and enable them to regain some momentum if in fact he is
the one that assumes the leadership role," Caldwell said.
He said, however, that al-Masri's ability to exert leadership
over al-Qaida cells remained unclear and there were other "al-Qaida
senior leadership members and Sunni terrorists" who might try to
take over the operations.
Iraq's national security adviser said earlier Thursday that
Iraqi security forces have seized al-Qaida in Iraq documents,
giving key information about the militant group's network and the
whereabouts of its leaders. "We believe this is the beginning of
the end of al-Qaida in Iraq," Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told a televized
news conference.
(China Daily June 16, 2006)
