Five U.S. soldiers are among 26 people who were killed in separate attacks committed today in Iraq, the bloodiest day since May 2009, according to official statements from Iraqi and U.S. military sources.
Iraqi security forces announced that the victims were killed in a missile attack launched on the outskirts of Baghdad where a U.S. base, Camp Victory, is located. There were also two bombings today, one in another district of Baghdad, while the second one hit the town of Tikrit, north of the country.
The death of the five soldiers amounts to 4,459 the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq after the invasion of US-led international coalition in March 2003, according to the AFP records drawn from data supplied by independent site www.icasualties.org.
On May 11, 2009, five U.S. soldiers have died in a shootout at Camp Liberty, located near Victory. A U.S. Army sergeant has been indicted for that bloody incident.
Since the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq in August 2010, the U.S. military in the region has about 45,000 troops, whose work focuses specifically on training the Iraqi armed forces.
The entire U.S. contingent will withdraw from Iraq by the end of the year, according to the bilateral agreement signed in late 2008 between U.S. and Iraqi authorities. According to the same site, since the beginning of 2011, 29 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq 29.