The US military has released an official tally that finds nearly 77,000 Iraqis were killed from January 2004 to August 2008, a period that covers the bloodiest chapter of the seven-year war.
In what is considered to be the military’s most detailed release of data on Iraq war deaths to date, the figures were discreetly posted on US Central Command’s Web site in late July.
They were, however, only reported by major news media outlets this week.
According to the count, 63,185 Iraqi civilians and 13,754 members of the Iraqi security forces were killed during the period, which includes the height of sectarian violence that ravaged the country in from 2006 to 2007.
At least 121,649 Iraqi civilians and security-force members were wounded, it said, while 3,592 coalition troops were killed and 30,068 wounded.
A US Defense Department spokesman said it was unclear whether insurgent deaths were included in the data, but noted that the killings were not only caused by coalition forces, but also al-Qaeda and other militant groups.
Estimates vary greatly on the number of Iraqis killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and the toll was lower than one provided by the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry.
In a report released in October last year, the ministry said 85,694 people died as a result of violence, while 147,195 people were wounded.
The independent public database Iraq Body Count puts the number of civilian deaths since 2003 at between 98,252 and 107,235.
While a controversial 2006 study by the British medical journal The Lancet claimed nearly 655,000 Iraqis had died in the war, far exceeding other estimates at the time.
The US military data was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from George Washington University’s National Security Archive.
It chronicled the steady progress of sectarian violence in the country, from about 239 civilian deaths a month in 2004 before reaching over 2,100 a month in 2006, when alleged al-Qaeda militants destroyed the golden dome of the al-Askari mosque, unleashing a wave of sectarian violence.
Bloodshed soared further in 2007, with over 3,000 Iraqi civilians killed in some months. Violence decreased toward the end of the year during a US troop surge, with 488 Iraqi civilians killed in August 2008.
Last month Iraqi government figures found a total of 273 Iraqis had died, the lowest figure since January, which saw 196 violent killings.
The sharp decline in attacks comes after July and August recorded two of the highest monthly tolls since 2008.
The US declared an official end to combat operations on Sept. 1, though US troops can still fire their weapons in self-defense and conduct joint counter-terror operations with their Iraqi counterparts.
A total of 4,425 US troops have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, according to independent Web site www.icasualties.org.
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