WASHINGTON – The deadliest month of the Iraq war for U.S. troops has taken an especially heavy toll on the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.
Overall, at least 136 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April – more than in the previous three months combined – including more than a dozen whose names have not been released because the Army has not notified their families. That compares with death totals of 50 in March, 21 in February and 46 in January.
In April, up to 1,361 Iraqis were killed, according to an Associated Press tally.
“No doubt that the casualties suffered in April were the most severe casualties that we have suffered in Iraq to date,” the top American commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, said Friday. He insisted, however, that U.S. forces are on track to defeat the insurgents.
The Army National Guard and Army Reserve were hit especially hard in April, with at least 17 deaths. That is more losses for the nation’s corps of citizen soldiers than in any other month of the war.
In the past week alone, six National Guard soldiers and one from the Army Reserve were killed in combat. In all, at least 111 National Guard and Reserve members have died in Iraq so far.
The escalating number of killed and wounded coincided with a surge in violence that began in late March, notably in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah, where U.S. forces initially had too few troops to establish full control, as well as in Baghdad and south-central Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld conceded at midmonth that he had not expected so many casualties a full year after Baghdad was taken and four months after Saddam Hussein was captured.
In all, 732 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the conflict began, according to the Pentagon’s official count on Friday. That figure, however, does not include at least some of the dozen who have died in the past two days.
Abizaid predicted on Friday that the level of anti-occupation violence will remain high as the June 30 target date for turning over political control to an interim Iraqi government approaches.
He insisted, however, “We are not in any military danger of losing control.”
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