Grim October benchmark in Iraq war as U.S. deaths eclipse 100

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The monthly U.S. death toll in Iraq has topped 100 for the first time in nearly two years.

According to an Associated Press count, October has also recorded more Iraqi civilian deaths — 1,170 as of Monday — than any other month since the AP began keeping track in May 2005. The next-highest month was March 2006, when 1,038 Iraqi civilians were killed in the aftermath of the bombing of an important Shiite shrine in Samarra.

At least 80 people were killed across Iraq on Monday, including 33 in a bombing targeting workers.

A member of the 89th Military Police Brigade was killed in east Baghdad on Monday, and a Marine died in fighting in Anbar province the previous day. The military today reported the deaths of two more soldiers in Baghdad on Monday, one who was hit by small-arms fire during combat, and the other whose vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb just south of the city.

These deaths raised to 103 the number of U.S. service members killed in a bloody October, the fourth-deadliest month of the war. At least 2,814 American forces have died since the war began in March 2003.

The U.S. lost 107 troops in Iraq in January 2005; at least 135 in April 2004, and 137 in November 2004.

The rising American casualties have produced a huge drag on Republican candidates as the U.S. midterm election approaches. The vote is seen in many cases as a referendum on the war, which has stretched into its 44th month. The Bush administration has invested heavy attention on Iraq in recent weeks, trying to put a new face on the conflict with mixed results.

Against a backdrop of the tense exchanges between the two administrations, U.S. national-security adviser Stephen Hadley made an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Monday to meet with his Iraqi counterpart and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on military coordination.

The Iraqi government issued a brief statement afterward saying they worked on details of a joint commission on security, training and reconciliation that had been agreed to during a video conference Saturday between President Bush and al-Maliki.

The White House said Hadley was not on a mission to repair ragged relations, but the timing of the visit argued otherwise.

Last week al-Maliki issued a string of bitter complaints — at one point saying he wasn't "America's man in Iraq" — after U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad unveiled adjustments in America's Iraq strategy.

The ambassador had announced that the prime minister agreed to implement a set of timelines to meet goals, prompting al-Maliki to accuse the White House of infringing on his government's sovereignty and say he was not consulted.

By week's end, al-Maliki and Bush held a hastily convened video conference call and agreed to speed the training of Iraqi forces and the return of control over all territory to the Iraqi army.

With American voter support for the war at a low point as the Nov. 7 congressional election approaches, a top aide to al-Maliki said the Iraqi leader was using the GOP's vulnerability on the issue to try to leverage concessions from the White House — particularly the speedy withdrawal of American forces from Iraqi cities to U.S. bases in the country.

Al-Maliki has said he believes the continued presence of American forces in Iraq's population centers is partly behind the surge in violence.

The case of a kidnapped American soldier, meanwhile, took a curious turn when a woman said the soldier was married to her daughter, a Baghdad college student, and was with the young woman and her family when hooded gunmen handcuffed him and threw him in the back seat of a white Mercedes last week. The marriage would violate military regulations.

The soldier's disappearance has prompted a massive manhunt, with much of it focused on Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite slum of 2.5 million people in northeastern Baghdad.

The military still had checkpoints surrounding the district Monday when a suspected Sunni insurgent slipped in and set off a bomb among day laborers. There were conflicting reports as to whether the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber or a device concealed amid debris by the roadside. The blast tore through food stalls and kiosks shortly after 6 a.m., killing at least 33 and wounding 59.

Sadr City is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The district has witnessed repeated bomb attacks by suspected al-Qaida fighters.

Ali Abdul-Ridha, wounded in the head and shoulders, said he was waiting for a job with his brother and about 100 others when he heard the massive explosion and "lost sight of everything."

He said the area had been exposed to attack because U.S. and Iraqi forces had driven into hiding the Mahdi Army fighters who normally police the district.

However, Falih Jabar, a 37-year-old father of two boys, blamed the militia for provoking extremists to attack civilians in the district.

"We are poor people just looking to make a living. We have nothing to do with any conflict," said Jabar, who suffered back wounds. "If [the extremists] have problems with the Mahdi Army, they must fight them, not us."

The last major bombing in Sadr City took place Sept. 23, when a bomb hidden in a barrel blew up a kerosene tanker and killed at least 35 people waiting to stock up on fuel for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Elsewhere in the capital Monday, gunmen killed hard-line Sunni academic Essam al-Rawi, head of the University Professors Union, as he was leaving home. At least 156 university professors have been killed since the war began. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, more are believed to have fled to neighboring countries.

Police and security officials throughout Iraq reported that at least 47 other people, many of them police, were killed in sectarian violence or found dead Monday, many of them dumped in the Tigris River and a tributary south of the capital.

The AP count that found a record number of Iraqi deaths in October includes civilians, government officials and police and security forces, and is considered a minimum based on AP reporting.

The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported.

Associated Press correspondents Christopher Bodeen and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report, which includes material from the Los Angeles Times.