Eight U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq on Monday

A wave of insurgent bombings took the lives of eight U.S. soldiers and fourteen Iraqis in what seems to be escalating violence.

"Bombers unleashed a wave of explosions in Baghdad and north of the capital Monday, including two attacks that killed eight U.S. service members in the deadliest day for the military this year, American and Iraqi authorities said."

"The combined death toll of at least 22 included 14 Iraqi casualties, on the heels of twin bombings that killed nearly 70 people last Thursday in a Baghdad shopping district, indicated that Sunni Muslim insurgents are reasserting their presence at a time when large-scale attacks had dipped to record lows, Iraqi officials said."

From McLatchey Newspapers:

In the worst attack on U.S. forces in Baghdad in nearly a year, five American service members died after a suicide bomber approached their foot patrol and detonated an explosives vest in the once-upscale central Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, according to the U.S. command in Baghdad.

Four soldiers were killed at the scene and another later died from his wounds, the military said in a statement. Three more American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded.
"These soldiers were walking in the neighborhood conducting a presence patrol. They were among the Iraqi people we have sworn to protect, where they live, work and gather," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad.

Three other American soldiers and an interpreter were killed Monday by a homemade bomb — what the military calls an improvised explosive device — in the town of Balad Ruz in the Diyala province northwest of Baghdad.

Another brazen attack in Diyala killed Sheik Thaeir Ghadhban al Karkhi, a tribal leader from the province who belonged to one of the controversial U.S.-sponsored Sunni militias that have pledged to fight al Qaida in Iraq.