U.S. troop deaths in Iraq at highest level since 2009

BAGHDAD — Two U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday in Iraq, the military command said, making June the worst month in combat-related fatalities for U.S. forces in Iraq in more than two years.

The casualties also reflected the dangers ahead as the United States prepares to withdraw all its troops from Iraq by the end of the year.

The June total of so-called hostile-related deaths of U.S. soldiers is now 11, the most since May 2009, when 12 were killed, according to icasualties.org, an online database that tracks deaths of foreign forces in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

In a statement issued Sunday night, the U.S. military said the two soldiers were killed "conducting operations" in the north. It did not elaborate, but that terminology is usually meant to indicate the deaths were caused by enemy attack.

Many of the remaining U.S. military bases in Iraq, particularly in the Shiite-dominated south, have faced an uptick in rocket and mortar attacks. Officially, the United States is in an advisory role to the Iraqi military — last year President Obama declared the official end of combat operations — which means U.S. forces are restricted from acting unilaterally.

Earlier Sunday, two civilians were killed and 17 people, including nine police officers, were wounded when a suicide bomber in a wheelchair blew himself up inside a police station in north Baghdad.

A police source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the attack took place around midday, when a man came to the station claiming he needed documents processed. He was not checked by security.

When the man entered the building, he blew himself up with the wheelchair, which was loaded with explosives and nails. Among the injured people was the chief of the police station.

Information from McClatchy Newspapers is included.

Unsuspecting girl

with bomb dies

KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents tricked an 8-year-old girl in a remote area of central Afghanistan into carrying a bomb wrapped in a cloth, then detonated it remotely when she was near a police vehicle, Afghan authorities said Sunday.

Only the girl died in the blast in Uwshi Village of Charchino District, said Fazal Ahmad Shirzad, Uruzguan province police chief.

Shirzad said he believed the girl was completely unaware the bag from Taliban insurgents held a bomb. The girl's body was later "taken to a nearby security check post and the police called her relatives," he said.

The New York Times