BAGHDAD, Iraq – Six more U.S. troops were killed in Iraq on Saturday, the military announced Sunday, which already was the third deadliest day for U.S. troops since their March 2003 invasion.
The latest deaths – five more U.S. soldiers and one Marine died in separate combat incidents in Baghdad and Anbar province – increased to 25 the number of American service members killed Saturday.
The bulk of Saturday’s U.S. deaths came in the crash of a Blackhawk helicopter northeast of Baghdad in which 12 soldiers were killed.
U.S. officials have yet to announce publicly the cause of the helicopter crash. A witness and an insurgent group claimed hostile fire struck the aircraft, but the military has released no information. CNN, reporting from Washington, quoted an anonymous Pentagon official saying the crash was likely the result of ground fire.
Also Saturday, five troops died in an attack on a security meeting in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. A local governor said two Americans were kidnapped, but Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, denied any Americans were kidnapped and said all “were accounted for after the action.”
Two other U.S. troops died in roadside bomb attacks elsewhere.
Saturday’s deaths of the 25 U.S. troops was eclipsed only by the one-day toll of 37 U.S. fatalities on Jan. 26, 2005, and 28 on the third day of the U.S. invasion.
Across Iraq on Sunday, 44 Iraqis were killed or found dead, police said. The toll included the bombing of a bus in a middle-class Shiite district of the capital that left seven dead and 15 injured.
A British soldier also was killed Sunday when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle in the southern city of Basra. Four other British soldiers were injured in the blast.
U.S. military deaths
The latest identifications reported by the U.S. military of personnel recently killed in Iraq:
Army Spc. Jason Corbett, 23, Casper, Wyo.; killed Jan. 15 in Karmah by small-arms fire; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
Army Spc. William Rechenmacher, 24, Jacksonville, Fla.; killed Thursday in Baghdad by an explosive; assigned to the 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Russell Borea, 38, El Paso, Texas; killed Friday in Mosul by an explosive; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Bliss, Texas.
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