A coalition of Sunni insurgent groups led by al-Qaeda's Iraq branch claimed responsibility in an Internet statement yesterday for a suicide bombing that killed nine US soldiers north of Baghdad.
"Knights from the martyrdom-seeking brigade of the Islamic State of Iraq plunged their booby-trapped trucks Monday into the US crusader outpost in ... Diyala," the statement by the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq said.
The statement's authenticity could not be confirmed.
According to the US military, a suicide car bomber struck a US military outpost north of Baghdad, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20 others, in the deadliest attack on US ground forces in 16 months.
The attack brought the US military death toll for this month so far to 70, the US military said.
Fifteen of the wounded were later able to resume their duties, but the attack was still the bloodiest on the ground since Dec. 1, 2005, when 10 US marines were killed and 11 wounded by a roadside bomb outside Fallujah.
Diyala Province has emerged as one of the fiercest battlegrounds in Iraq, the new focus of Sunni al-Qaeda fighters pushed out of western Iraq and Baghdad by large-scale US and Iraqi security operations.
Another US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the Diyala town of Muqdadiyah on the same day, according to his command.
The latest fatalities took the military's losses in Iraq to 3,330 since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
A British soldier was also killed in the southern city of Basra, taking to 145 the number of British troops who have died in Iraq since 2003.
Monday was also a deadly day for Iraqi police and civilians, with at least 27 killed and dozens wounded in attacks across the country.
Meanwhile, gunmen disguised as Iraqi soldiers raided a remote village near Baquba yesterday, killing six people, wounding 15, and burning five homes, police said.
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