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US military casualties in Iraq spike

Eight US servicemen were killed across Iraq in a series of incidents that have kept this month on course to be one of the bloodiest months of the war, the US military reported yesterday.

The spike in US casualties comes amid a four-month-long surge in troop numbers meant to restore stability to the turbulent capital but which has also exposed US troops to greater losses.

Already more than a 100 servicemen have died this month, making for a grim run-up to the US' Memorial Day today, when a country increasingly disillusioned by the four-year-old war commemorates its dead.

Three soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded next to their vehicle in the mainly Sunni province of Salaheddin on Saturday. Two others were wounded in the blast.

Another explosion on Saturday, this time in southern Baghdad, killed a soldier and wounded two others. Their unit had been searching for weapons caches and detaining insurgent suspects.

In western Anbar Province a marine was also killed in combat.

A complex attack involving explosives and small arms fire killed another soldier late on Friday north of the capital near Taji. Three others were wounded in the attack.

On Wednesday, another roadside bomb in the predominantly Shiite eastern part of the capital exploded killing two soldiers.

Since Friday at least 17 service members have been reported dead and the latest casualties bring the killed since the March 2003 invasion to 3,453.

US President George W. Bush called on the Iraqi government to repay the mounting sacrifices of US soldiers with political progress, and said his unfolding plan to surge nearly 30,000 troops into Iraq would reach a peak next month.

"This summer is going to be a critical time for the new strategy," Bush said, predicting a torrent of violence as the top US general in Iraq, David Petraeus, prepares to report in September on the progress of the surge.

Amid mounting popular dissatisfaction with the war, Congress' Democrats attempted to put provisions for a withdrawal timetable into the bill, which was ultimately defeated.

Al-Qaeda's No. 2 official, Ayman Zawahiri, has also panned any withdrawal timetable since it would deprive insurgents of "the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap."

Meanwhile, Democrats plan to raise their pressure on Bush to end US involvement in the unpopular war.

Bush signed a war spending bill late on Friday that does not set a date for US troop withdrawals. It was a defeat for Democrats who want the president to start pulling troops out of Iraq -- an idea roundly rejected by administration officials.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that the administration is working on ideas for cutting US forces in Iraq by as much as half, to roughly 100,000, by the middle of next year.

Citing unidentified administration officials, the report said the mission for the additional combat troops Bush sent in January would be greatly scaled back to focus on training Iraqi troops and fighting al-Qaeda.

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said some of the troops in the military buildup have not arrived in Iraq.

"The purpose of the reinforcements that are moving in is to help Iraqis create the very conditions that would allow US troops to begin coming home," Perino said.

"We, of course, would like to be in a position to bring down troop levels, but certain conditions -- as assessed by senior military advisers and commanders on the ground -- need to be met to warrant that," she said.

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