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To: epicure who wrote (2151)	6/15/2003 11:23:59 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 20773

Death toll mounts in aftermath of war on Iraq June 15 2003 at 08:42AM By Patrick Cockburn In an ominous sign that the war in Iraq is far from over, the United States has claimed to have killed 27 Iraqis who ambushed a tank with rocket-propelled grenades north of Baghdad. The number of attacks on American forces north and west of the capital has risen sharply in recent weeks and the US military says it has killed 70 Iraqis, but suffered the loss of an Apache helicopter shot down in an attack on a guerrilla training camp on Thursday. Although US President George Bush has declared major combat in Iraq over, about 40 American soldiers have been killed since the beginning of May. At this rate US casualties since the war may soon exceed those suffered during the war. There have been sporadic attacks in the Sunni Muslim heartlands north of Baghdad. Leaflets - one of which may have been written by deposed president Saddam Hussein - have called for armed resistance against US occupation. 'A man in Iraq does not think he is really a man unless he has a gun' Guerrillas on Friday fired rocket-propelled grenades at a tank patrol of the 4th Infantry Division in Balad, a farming town of 20 000 people north of Baghdad. A US statement said: "The tanks returned fire, killing four of the attackers and forcing the remainder to flee. Tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles reinforced with AH-64 Apache helicopters pursued enemy personnel, killing 23 of the attackers." No American soldiers were killed or injured in the attack, in which the attackers sprung from a thicket of reeds on an isolated rural road. It is not clear how many of the Iraqi casualties really were fighters. In country areas Iraqi civilians invariably own weapons, which may include rocket-propelled grenade launchers and machine guns. "A man in Iraq does not think he is really a man unless he has a gun," commented one Iraqi observer. Reaction to heavy-handed US searches Reflecting growing US anxiety, about four thousand US troops have been searching an area north-east of Balad over the past five days in Operation Peninsula Strike - the biggest single operation against guerrillas since the fall of Baghdad. In another operation, a US military official said the 101st Airborne and special operations units had attacked a "terrorist" training camp near Haditha in northwest Iraq. One US soldier was wounded, but the two-man crew of the downed Apache helicopter was rescued. Between 70 and 80 Sam-7 shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles were found in the camp, with about 78 rocket-propelled grenades and 20 AK-47 rifles. In a separate incident, US troops arrested 74 people described as al-Qaeda sympathisers in a raid on Thursday near the city of Kirkuk. The US military portrayed its operations this week as part of "the continuous effort to eradicate Ba'ath Party loyalists, paramilitary groups and other subversive elements". But signs are that many of the guerrilla attacks are spontaneous or in reaction to heavy-handed US searches. The atmosphere throughout Iraq remains very edgy, with many Iraqis claiming that there are more guerrilla attacks and heavier US losses than are reported, though there is no evidence for this.