Four U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq; brothers buried
Pastor Dale Morgan
Four U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq; brothers buried*
By Ross Colvin
Reuters
Friday, August 3, 2007; 4:16 PM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Four U.S. soldiers were killed in Baghdad, the U.S.
military said on Friday, underlining U.S. President George W. Bush's
grim prediction of "a very difficult August" for U.S. troops in Iraq.
The military said a roadside bomb killed three soldiers on patrol in
eastern Baghdad on Thursday during operations targeting Shi'ite and
Sunni militants. Eleven others were wounded. A fourth soldier died in
combat in a western district.
Bush has sent an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq, despite strong opposition
at home, to help quell unrelenting sectarian violence and give Iraq's
leaders time to achieve a political deal to promote national reconciliation.
His strategy has had some success but at a cost -- May was the deadliest
month in 2 1/2 years for U.S. troops with 126 killed, and more than 100
died in both April and June.
The July death toll, initially put at 74, was welcomed by U.S.
commanders as a possible sign the military buildup was bearing fruit.
But by Friday, the toll had climbed to 81 on the icasualties.org Web
site, on a par with February and March.
In May, Bush predicted that Iraqi militants, particularly Sunni Islamist
al Qaeda, would attempt to influence the U.S. debate on the war by
launching attacks ahead of a military assessment of the strategy due in
September.
"It could be a bloody ... it could be a very difficult August," he said.
Five U.S. soldiers died in the first two days of the month.
The biggest killer of U.S. troops is roadside bombs, which Washington
says neighboring Shi'ite Muslim Iran supplies to Shi'ite militant groups
in Iraq.
The U.S. Army painted a slightly more optimistic picture in the Anbar
capital of Ramadi. Army Col. John Charlton, commander of the 1st
Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, said daily attacks in Ramadi fell from
30 to 35 in February to one a day thanks largely to the growth of local
police and army units.
Anbar had been an al Qaeda stronghold where Sunni tribal leaders have
turned against militants in recent months.
Charlton, who commands an area of about 500,000 residents centered on
Ramadi, said local forces continued to depend on the United States for
fuel, weapons and ammunition.
"I think probably in the next six to eight months we ought to be able to
get a lot of those (logistics) systems in place," Charlton said at a
Pentagon briefing via video link from Iraq.
BROTHERS MOURNED
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the violence, victims of a wave
of sectarian violence and criminal gangs taking advantage of a security
vacuum.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, relatives mourned the deaths of five
brothers who were kidnapped and killed after their desperately poor
family was unable to pay a $100,000 ransom.
Police found a sixth brother, a small boy, weeping but unharmed next to
the bodies, which had been bound and shot in the head. Many such murders
take place every day in Iraq, but the presence of the small boy at the
scene touched a nerve.
Reuters pictures showed an uncle of one of the men, turbaned and wearing
white traditional Arab robes, weeping and curled up next to a wooden
coffin, the body of his nephew wrapped in a thick patterned blanket.
A cousin of the men said four of them, all day laborers, had gone to
help their brother paint the hospital in al-Rashaad district southwest
of Kirkuk.
On their way home to Kirkuk, they were kidnapped by gunmen. When the
family said they could not afford to pay the ransom, they were told,
"Then come and get their bodies."
In other violence, gunmen in the southern holy Shi'ite city of Najaf
killed an imam with links to reclusive spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani, in a drive-by shooting.
(Additional reporting by David Morgan)