Iraq agency tally shows death spike
More than 17,000 police, civilians slain in last six months
Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post
(01-08) 04:00 PST Baghdad -- More than 17,000 Iraqi civilians and police died violently in the latter half of 2006, according to Iraqi Health Ministry statistics, a sharp increase that coincided with rising sectarian strife since the February bombing of a landmark Shiite shrine.
The new figures were reported as fighting in Iraq took the lives of five U.S. servicemen in recent days, the military said. A car bomb Sunday in Baghdad killed three U.S. airmen assigned to a bomb disposal unit.
A U.S. soldier was killed by small arms fire in southwestern Baghdad on Saturday, and another soldier assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group died from combat wounds in Anbar province in western Iraq.
In the first six months of last year, 5,640 Iraqi civilians and police were killed, but that number more than tripled to 17,310 in the latter half of the year, according to data provided by a Health Ministry official with direct knowledge of the statistics. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said those numbers remained incomplete, suggesting the final tally of violent deaths could be higher.
Much of last year's politically motivated bloodshed unfolded in Baghdad. The Bush administration is considering sending more U.S. troops there. Bringing stability and rule of law to the capital is a cornerstone of the administration's strategy to exit Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, over the weekend, announced his own security push to tame Baghdad's sectarian strife.
Last year's spike in casualties occurred despite an ambitious U.S. military operation in the capital, Together Forward, that involved thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops cordoning off some of the deadliest neighborhoods and performing house-to-house searches.
(The rest is here.)
Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post
(01-08) 04:00 PST Baghdad -- More than 17,000 Iraqi civilians and police died violently in the latter half of 2006, according to Iraqi Health Ministry statistics, a sharp increase that coincided with rising sectarian strife since the February bombing of a landmark Shiite shrine.
The new figures were reported as fighting in Iraq took the lives of five U.S. servicemen in recent days, the military said. A car bomb Sunday in Baghdad killed three U.S. airmen assigned to a bomb disposal unit.
A U.S. soldier was killed by small arms fire in southwestern Baghdad on Saturday, and another soldier assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group died from combat wounds in Anbar province in western Iraq.
In the first six months of last year, 5,640 Iraqi civilians and police were killed, but that number more than tripled to 17,310 in the latter half of the year, according to data provided by a Health Ministry official with direct knowledge of the statistics. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said those numbers remained incomplete, suggesting the final tally of violent deaths could be higher.
Much of last year's politically motivated bloodshed unfolded in Baghdad. The Bush administration is considering sending more U.S. troops there. Bringing stability and rule of law to the capital is a cornerstone of the administration's strategy to exit Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, over the weekend, announced his own security push to tame Baghdad's sectarian strife.
Last year's spike in casualties occurred despite an ambitious U.S. military operation in the capital, Together Forward, that involved thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops cordoning off some of the deadliest neighborhoods and performing house-to-house searches.
(The rest is here.)
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