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15 U.S. troops killed in Iraq

By TIMES WIRES
Published June 4, 2007

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military announced Sunday that at least 15 American soldiers were killed over the past three days, including four in a single roadside bombing and another who was struck by a suicide bomber while on a foot patrol.

Also, in a bold attack outside a major U.S. military base, insurgents discharged a gaseous cloud that sickened dozens of people Sunday.

The gas bomb exploded near the main gate of Forward Operating Base Warhorse, the largest U.S. military facility in Diyala province, a restive territory north of Baghdad.

An Iraqi employee on the base said the bomb unleashed chlorine gas. The U.S. military did not confirm that but said soldiers suffered "minor respiratory irritations and watery eyes."

Such attacks are common, but have rarely been used against concentrations of U.S. troops, the military said.

The blast that killed the four U.S. soldiers Sunday came as the troops were conducting a cordon and search operation northwest of Baghdad, according to a military statement. Two other soldiers were killed and five were wounded along with an Iraqi interpreter in two separate roadside bombings on Sunday, the military said.

In one attack, a U.S. soldier was killed Friday after his patrol approached two suspicious men for questioning near a mosque southwest of Baghdad, and one of the suspects blew himself up. Military spokesman Maj. Webster Wright said U.S. troops also fired at the second suspect after he began acting aggressively, and the gunfire detonated his suicide vest.

"Our initial analysis is that these guys were al-Qaida and were planning to launch attacks into Baghdad, " Wright said in an e-mail.

Seven other soldiers were killed in a series of attacks across Iraq on Saturday.

The soldiers' names were withheld pending notification of their families.

Combined with the previously announced death of a U.S. soldier in central Baghdad on Friday, it was a deadly start for June. May was the third bloodiest month since the war began in March 2003, with 127 troop deaths reported.

The attacks came days after the Pentagon announced the completion of the troop buildup ordered by President Bush in January, raising the total number of troops in Iraq to about 150, 000. That number may still climb as more support troops move in.

The Bush administration has warned that the buildup will result in more U.S. casualties as more American soldiers come into contact with enemy forces.

"This is going to get harder before it gets easier. We're fighting a determined, adaptive enemy that's trying to derail the security plan and kill as many American soldiers as it can, " said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.

"This is how we're going to get to long-term security, through this short-term upswing in contact with the enemy."

U.S. military officials cite many reasons for the recent rise in fatalities, including the growing use of deeply buried, powerful roadside bombs that can blast through armored vehicles and the more aggressive tactics of American troops who are patrolling in greater numbers in unexplored areas.

The counterinsurgency strategy launched by Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has moved soldiers off the sprawling, fortified American bases into smaller, more vulnerable outposts in violent neighborhoods to bring them in more sustained contact with the people they want to protect.

But their presence creates more potential targets, as combat operations have expanded with the addition of five brigades of soldiers in Iraq, part of President Bush's troop buildup.

[Last modified June 4, 2007, 01:49:37]