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Eight more US troops die in Iraq, blast kills 25 Iraqis

* 3,642 US soldiers have died in Iraq so far
* UN secretary general condemns bomb attacks

BAGHDAD: Eight more US troops have died in Iraq, including three marines and a sailor killed in a day of fighting in the restive province of Diyala north of the capital, the military said on Thursday.

The four were killed on Tuesday while fighting in the second most dangerous province in Iraq after Baghdad. Ten thousand US and Iraqi troops have been carrying out a major assault on suspected Al Qaeda strongholds in Diyala.

On the same day another soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the capital, the military said in a separate statement.

Another soldier was shot dead in south Baghdad on Wednesday, and earlier this week a soldier and a marine died of non-battle related causes in separate incidents, the military said.

The latest fatalities took the US military’s losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 3,642, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

Earlier on Thursday the number-two US commander in Iraq told reporters that US casualties seemed to be declining since May, calling it an “initial positive sign” that a five-month-old security plan was showing results.

In late June thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers poured into Diyala in an assault known as Operation Arrowhead Ripper against Al Qaeda.

But soon after the operation was launched Odierno said 80 percent of the senior Al Qaeda leadership in the city had fled ahead of the assault, leaving behind a labyrinth of booby-trapped structures and buried bombs.

Meanwhile, A powerful car bomb rocked central Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 25 bystanders, wounding more than 75 and destroying a row of shops in a busy commercial district.

From the Baghdad blast scene, an AFP journalist said he saw dozens of casualties being carried away from the site, which partially demolished one building and left several vehicles in flames.

Medics at nearby Ibn Nafees hospital said they had received 15 corpses and were treating 64 casualties, including many women and children caught outside in the popular shopping area on the eve of Friday’s day of prayers.

The bomb exploded in a loop of the Tigris river just south of the fortified area which houses the US embassy and Iraqi government offices, sending up a column of black smoke and rattling windows two kilometres (a mile) away.

More than four years since the US-led invasion of March 2003, Iraq is in the grip of a series of overlapping conflicts pitting the embattled security forces and their US allies against a range of rebel and militia groups. But even as US casualties gradually decrease, insurgents continue to launch daily attacks on Iraqi security forces, killing at least 10 in separate incidents on Thursday.

Five policemen were killed by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, security and medical officials said, and another five security force members were killed during a joint raid on an alleged Al Qaeda stronghold west of executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq.

Two policemen and three Iraqi soldiers were killed in the raid, including an army major, according to an Iraqi army officer in Tikrit who asked not to be identified. Another officer was wounded.

A car bomb in western Baghdad wounded another five Iraqi soldiers, and five civilians were injured by mortar fire in the east of the city, a security official said. Baghdad police also reported recovering 20 corpses, all of men shot dead and left in the streets.

Meanwhile UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Wednesday’s two bomb attacks in Baghdad that killed more than 50 Iraqi civilians celebrating the national football team’s victory in the Asian Cup semi-finals. afp

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