3 GIs Dead
So Far, 18,200 US Troops Wounded in Iraq

See Nir Rosen's important article, "Iraq is the Republic of Fear" in WaPo today.

Reuters rounds up the civil war violence in Iraq on Saturday. By my count, at least nineteen were reported dead.

Three GIs were announced dead, two in a helicopter crash on Saturday and one on Friday in clashes in Anbar province.

Up north, guerrillas stopped an army patrol 25 miles south of Kirkuk and shot an Iraqi army major to death, and wounding three soldiers. In Mosul, guerrillas shot two men dead. In Dujail, guerrillas attacked a military checkpoint, killing 2 Iraqi soldiers and wounding 3.

In the northeast near Baquba, guerrillas ambushed a police car, killing a colonel and four of his bodyguards, and wounding other bodyguards. In Baquba itself, guerrillas shot three ironsmiths and then killed two men at a tire repair shop. Sounds like a contract dispute to me.

In Baghdad, guerrillas fired a mortar round into a crowded market to the south of the city, killing 4 and wounding 15.

In the south, in Diwaniyah, guerrillas set off a roadside bomb near the house of a police colonel, seriously wounding him. The previously mentioned incidents were probably carried out by Sunni Arabs, but the hit in Diwaniyah is more likely by local Shiite militiamen.

18,200 GIs have been wounded in Iraq. This article says that half a million Americans bear wounds from warfare, going back to WW II.