Four U.S. Troops Killed Near Baghdad

02/27/2007

Agence France-Presse


A roadside bomb killed three US troops on Tuesday as they carried out a mission outside Baghdad, the military said, while also announcing the death one day earlier of a logistics soldier.

"A Multinational Brigade Baghdad unit struck an improvised explosive device while conducting a route clearance mission southwest of the Iraqi capital, killing three soldiers and wounding another," it said in a statement.

On Monday, a soldier was killed and two wounded when a similar bomb detonated against their Humvee near the central town of Diwaniyah, the military added.

US commanders are currently sending thousands of reinforcements into Baghdad in a so-called "surge" strategy designed to quell sectarian violence and reassert the Iraqi government's authority.

The four soldiers were killed as US intelligence chief Michael McConnell warned senators in Washington that the situation is worsening and that "the term 'civil war' accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict".

The deaths brought to 3,158 the US military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.