U.S. death toll tops 3,500 in Iraq


This video is about Arlington West, April 1, 2007, Veterans for Peace Fallen Soldier Memorial, Santa Monica, California, USA.

By Hamid Ahmed, Associated Press Writer:

BAGHDAD – Another U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the military said Thursday, pushing the four-year death toll for American forces to 3,501, according to an Associated Press tally.

The count includes 23 deaths in the first six days of June, an average of about four per day.

The soldier was killed Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded during combat operations in a southwestern section of Baghdad, a military statement said.

It added that two other soldiers were wounded in the attack and evacuated to a coalition medical facility.

The soldiers’ names were withheld pending notification of relatives.

The Bush administration has warned that the current troop buildup in and around Baghdad will result in more U.S. casualties as American troops increasingly come into contact with enemy forces. …

At midday, in another incident, an exploding roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol wounded two Iraqi civilians in the Neiriya area of eastern Baghdad, and two others were wounded when the Americans opened fire randomly at the scene, an Iraqi police officer said.

All the Iraqi police officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information and feared repercussions.

The first major study into the human cost of the Iraq war in eight years has found that nearly half a million people died because of the US-led invasion: here.