Print

Mail

wiki links

Iraq death toll up 15 percent last month

A US soldier patrols an area off Bab al-Muazzam Sunni mosque in Baghdad, Iraq, on Saturday. A string of bomb attacks killed 14 people in Iraq yesterday as Washington's new ambassador vowed that the US would do everything to curb the unrelenting bloodshed. PHOTO: AFP

The death toll in Iraq last month rose 15 percent with more than 2,000 Iraqis killed, an official said yesterday, as insurgents and sectarian militias continue to defy a massive military crackdown in Baghdad.

Last month, at least 2,078 Iraqi civilians, policemen and soldiers died nationwide, 272 more than in February and grim news for the crackdown launched six weeks ago and billed as a last chance to wrest back control of the city.

But Iraqi President Jalal Talabani still hailed progress in stemming the activities of the Mehdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, blamed by the US military as the most dangerous player in sectarian violence.

"The Mehdi Army seems to be following the orders of brother Moqtada Sadr and there is no action on its part. This is a good gesture and there are no [Sunni Arab] complaints against them," he told a news conference on Saturday.

Speaking after meeting new US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Talabani also said that some armed groups acting outside mainstream politics have expressed a willingness to surrender, without elaborating.

The US says that Sadr fled to Iran in self-imposed exile in January, just weeks before the much-vaunted security operation was launched.

He has not been seen in public in either Iran or Iraq since the crackdown started on Feb. 14. Nor has he appeared at Friday prayers at his local mosque to deliver one of his inflammatory sermons since last Oct. 24.

The US military maintains that daily execution-style killings, associated with Shiite militias, have fallen in Baghdad during the crackdown, while the car bombings favored by Sunni insurgents have continued.

Detailed statistics collected by the defense, interior and health ministries said there was a significant increase in Iraqi civilian, army and police deaths last month, when more than 80 US military deaths were also recorded.

The security official said that an average of three more people died each day last month -- 67 compared with 64 in February.

As proof that civilians are always the main casualty of war, 1,869 Iraqi bystanders died last month compared with 1,646 in February, far more than the combined Iraqi-US death count for security personnel put together.

Last month, 165 Iraqi policemen were killed as against 131 the previous month, while 44 Iraqi soldiers died compared with 29 in February, the official said.

The US military also lost 85 personnel last month, taking to 3,244 a tally based on Pentagon statistics as of yesterday, compared with the toll of 3,159 on Feb. 28.

US military losses, heavily outweighing the deaths of Iraqi soldiers and police, continued despite Washington's claim that Iraqi forces are leading the security crackdown in Baghdad.

Last week, outgoing US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said violence in the city -- seen as crucial to the security of the whole country -- had fallen by 25 percent since US and Iraqi troops launched the crackdown.

But insurgents have increasingly taken to operating outside Baghdad to avoid retribution from the 80,000 US and Iraqi troops deployed in the capital, with neighboring Diyala Province now the second-deadliest area in Iraq.

In the northern town of Tal Afar, for example, a devastating truck bomb last Tuesday killed 152 people, the interior ministry said. The attack was avenged by the massacre of at least 45 Sunni men.

It was the deadliest sectarian violence in the country for months and the worst bloodshed in the small town of 200,000 residents since US President George W. Bush paraded Tal Afar as a beacon of hope in March last year.
This story has been viewed 1187 times.