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US troop deaths in Iraq heading for three year low

BAGHDAD: The toll of US soldiers killed in Iraq during the month of December is set to be lowest since February 2004, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

Up until Sunday, the US military had reported at least 18 soldiers killed in December, less than half the number reported in November when it said 37 troops died in combat and non-combat incidents. That number was up on September and October, when 29 US troops were killed. The December death toll, if it remains below 20, will be the lowest since February 2004. US military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith Sunday confirmed that the casualty toll in December was likely to be low.

“I don’t have the specific numbers but one should recall that the casualties in Iraq when 2007 began were at very high. In June, July and August, coalition and Iraqi security force casualties were extremely high,” Smith told a news conference in Baghdad.

“Those numbers began to come down ... and now in December we are seeing possibly one of the lowest numbers of coalition force casualties in recent memory,” he added. Smith said, however, that the Iraqi security forces were bearing the full brunt of the violence in Iraq. “Coalition force casualties are outnumbered by the Iraqi security forces who suffer an extremely high death toll,” he said. “They are indeed the front line in this war against terrorism.”

The US military’s overall losses since the March 2003 invasion stand at 3,898, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures. The Pentagon figures include soldiers who died outside Iraq during medical treatment. Despite a drop in violence across Iraq, there is still no place in the country that is safe from attack by extremists, the US military warned on Sunday.

“We have made no projections of peace at hand. We realise that security is very fragile and that at any moment any attack could occur at any place in Iraq,” Smith told a news conference in Baghdad. agencies

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