There were some mainstream reports today on the deaths of five US soldiers Saturday, all resulting from IED attacks. Weekends are slower news days, and these attacks appear to have been on the shoulder between two news cycles, so it's possible the major dailies couldn't get a solid story before deadline. But Saturday was just a capper for a particularly deadly week in Iraq, in which 22 US soliders lost their lives, including eight last Sunday. Two of those deaths were from vehicle accidents, but the other 20 were the result of hostile action--17 of those from explosive devices. A total of eight soldiers were killed last Sunday, one of the larger single-day totals since the war began, particularly considering no major offensives were underway, and no armaments like helicopters were shot out of the sky. Perhaps I haven't constructed my Google query right, but despite apparently being the result of four separate hostile incidents, I don't see any reference to the day's carnage.
If previous reporting from the field is still true, the fact that the deaths were from explosives suggests that the Iraqi portion of the insurgency continues with some strength--it is almost always the Baathists and Sunni agitants who make the bombs and target military personnel with them. Foreign jihadists, on the other hand, tend to favor suicide bombings against Iraqi police and civilians. Which makes the Defense Department's writeup of Saturday's activity rather presumptively curious:
Elsewhere in Iraq, Marines from Regimental Combat Team 2 were attacked today with mortar fire from terrorists operating in a local schoolhouse just southeast of Haditha, according to U.S. military officials at Camp Blue Diamond in Ar Ramadi.
The schoolhouse was rigged with explosives and fortified with .30 caliber machine guns in the windows, officials said. Coalition forces determined that the school was being used as a weapons cache site.
The engagement began while coalition forces were conducting a cordon and search of the area, during which a weapons cache of rockets was discovered nearby. When coalition troops counter attacked the schoolhouse, they were supported by M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks and combat aircraft that dropped bombs on targets.
Officials described secondary explosions as being larger detonations than those from the bombs that were dropped.
No civilian casualties were reported and the school was not in session at the time.
Several terrorists were confirmed killed during the incident.
In Samarra, Task Force Liberty soldiers killed one terrorist and captured two others July 30 after observing them trying to emplace a 155 mm artillery shell roadside bomb in a hole one of them had been digging earlier in Samarra, U.S. military officials in Tikrit reported today.
During a search of the area, troops found two more 155 mm rounds, wire and a cell phone inside a nearby car.
While working in west Baghdad July 28, a Task Force Baghdad unit discovered a weapons cache containing bomb-making materials, detonation devices and a roadside bomb in the beginning stages of construction, officials noted.
Fifteen minutes later, another group of Task Force Baghdad soldiers found a car bomb in an old truck stopped in the middle of a road in the Karb de Gla district of south Baghdad. The soldiers noticed wires running from the car and followed them to a location where they found three suspected terrorists. The suspects were taken into custody and an explosives team safely detonated the bomb, officials said.
Overall, July was fairly par for the course this year; the two preceding months saw as many as 80 deaths. But on a weekly basis, with two significant death tolls to remark upon, it's sad that not much remarking actually got done. Rest well and thank you, gentlemen.
--TJ
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