Last 6 months the deadliest ever for US forces in Iraq

BAGHDAD: The last six months of 2004 proved the deadliest period for US forces in Iraq despite the formal end of the US-led occupation in June, with a total of 503 soldiers killed, figures showed Friday. Rather than deflating the insurgency, the first full six months of Iraqi sovereignty under the US-backed interim government has witnessed a surge in bloodshed. The deadliest month was November when 141 troops were killed, reflecting the heavy combat in the Sunni Muslim bastion of Fallujah where US troops battled rebels in the street in some of the heaviest fighting ever in Iraq. In December, a total of 75 soldiers were killed, 14 of them when an Al Qaeda linked suicide bomber attacked a US army base in northern Iraq last week in the deadliest single strike on Americans in the country. afp

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