Baghdad push takes deadly toll on U.S. troops

BAGHDAD, Iraq — In the second month of a security crackdown in the capital, U.S. military casualties appear to be rising, even as deaths among Iraqi security forces have fallen, according to U.S. military sources and analysts.

Tuesday, the U.S. military revised its count of deaths that occurred in the capital Monday to eight — the highest daily toll in a month. In September, 79 troops died nationwide, about a third of them in Baghdad, according to the military.

U.S. officials and military experts said that the recent increases could be attributable to U.S. troops' greater exposure to combat since redeploying in early August from hardened bases to Baghdad's streets on a mission to stem sectarian bloodshed between Shiite paramilitaries and Sunni Arab insurgents.

More than 15,400 U.S. troops are actively engaged in operations in and around Baghdad, exposed to sniper fire and roadside bombs on a daily basis, according to the U.S. military. As of Tuesday, at least 2,730 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war, according to an Associated Press count.

As American fatalities increased, the number of fatalities among Iraqi security forces fell in September to 150 — the lowest number since June, and among the lowest monthly tallies in 18 months, according to the Brookings Institution Iraq Index.

The latest casualties come as American troops' strategy has shifted from a broad, national counter-insurgency to suppressing sectarian fighting in Baghdad.

Military experts said the divergent trends in fatalities between U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces could mean that Sunni Arab insurgents are targeting Americans more effectively while Iraqi police forces have grown in strength.

But the tolls also could renew criticism about the Iraqi army's recent failure to provide 4,000 troops for the Baghdad security plan.

Observers also noted recent statements of al-Qaida in Iraq that reveal a strategy to shift away from Iraqi troops to U.S. forces.

Documents recovered after U.S. forces bombed a safe house near Baqouba in June, killing al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, indicated senior al-Qaida leadership chided al-Zarqawi for targeting Iraqi civilians, and urged him to focus on American troops.

In September, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, alleged to be al-Zarqawi's replacement, issued an audio recording calling on al-Qaida fighters in Iraq to increase their attacks against Americans.

Although al-Qaida is the most virulently anti-American insurgent force in the country, it is by no means the only one, said Brian Fishman, a professor at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.

The Sunni Arab insurgency is composed of many elements, including former members of Saddam Hussein's toppled regime. Iraq's National Security Adviser Mowaffak Rubaie said last month that 80 percent of the insurgency was composed of local fighters.

The rising number of U.S. casualties is dwarfed by the tally of violent Iraqi deaths, which in July and August reached the highest point since 2003: more than 5,000 deaths in Baghdad alone, according to the United Nations. The Iraqi government is planning to release September's death toll later this week.

The high number of civilian deaths, many of whom are Sunni Arab victims of Shiite death squads, suggests that U.S. forces eventually may have to take on Shiite militias with the same vigor as they have fought insurgents — a prospect that would likely lead to even higher U.S. casualties.

"As long as they are fighting the Sunni insurgents, you don't have a problem with the Shiites," said Anthony Cordesman, a Washington-based military analyst. "But the minute they try to deal with the overall sectarian violence — you can't do that without coming into occasional conflict with sectarian and ethnic elements who are not insurgents and not terrorists. These are things that don't offer easy choices to make."

The U.S. military has not released data that shows the number of attacks against Americans by Shiite fighters, but anecdotal evidence suggests that they may be rising.

"We've seen attacks by various groups of extremists on both sides of the equation," Johnson said.

A senior U.S. military official last month said that Shiite militias are obtaining high-quality bombs from Iran that are occasionally used against U.S. and British troops.

U.S. forces have been met with heavy resistance during occasional raids on Shiite militia strongholds such as Sadr City, a Baghdad slum named after anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, founder and leader of the Mahdi Army militia. On Sunday, U.S. forces engaged in a shootout with militiamen as they attempted to detain an alleged death-squad leader.

U.S. officials have complained that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has blocked a more concerted effort to combat militias in Shiite neighborhoods.