5 troops die; last 3 months are deadliest

BAGHDAD - A huge bomb exploded near an American patrol, and five U.S. soldiers died in the blast and the hail of gunfire and grenades that followed, the U.S. military said yesterday. The attack came as the Pentagon tallied the deadliest three-month period for Americans since the war began.

Seven soldiers were wounded in the attack Thursday in the Rasheed district, a mixed Sunni-Shiite area of southern Baghdad where U.S.-led forces recently stepped up pressure on insurgents. The commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad suggested the ambush could be part of an escalating backlash by Sunni insurgents.

Those deaths brought to 99 the number of U.S. troops killed this month, according to an Associated Press count. The toll for the last three months - 329 - made it the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. That surpasses the 316 troops killed from November 2004 through January 2005.

Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., who commands U.S. forces in the Iraqi capital, said the Thursday attack was "very violent," displaying a "level of sophistication that we have not often seen so far in this campaign."

He said a blast from a "very large" bomb buried deep in the ground triggered the attack, which was followed by volleys of small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. Four soldiers were killed in the attack, and a fifth died Thursday night of his wounds, Fil said.

U.S. casualties have been rising since President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 more troops to Iraq in a major push to pacify Baghdad and surrounding areas. The goal was to curb the violence so Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders could strike agreements to share power.

But progress toward agreements to share oil wealth, provide a greater political role to the Sunni minority, and shore up local governments has been slow because of deep suspicions after four years of bloodshed.

In a hopeful sign, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called off a march, planned for Thursday, to a bombed shrine in Samarra north of Baghdad. He acted after appeals from the government, which feared Sunni extremists would attack marchers along the way.

Sheikh Asad al-Nassiri, an aide to the cleric, told a congregation at Friday prayer services in Kufa that Sadr canceled the march because of "the government's inability to secure the route and many officials' appeals for a postponement."

Elsewhere yesterday, a suicide truck bomber attacked an Iraqi army post 20 miles north of the capital, killing six soldiers and wounding five, police said. Two civilians were killed in a barrage of gunfire that followed, they said.

Iraqi police said a bomb exploded under a pipeline south of Baghdad, spilling crude oil and sparking a huge fire. The pipeline carries oil from Iraq's southern oil fields to the Dora refinery in the capital.

The U.N. Security Council voted yesterday to immediately shut down

the U.N. offices key to monitoring Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs under Saddam Hussein - a decision an Iraqi diplomat said would close "an appalling chapter" in Iraq's history.

The resolution terminating the mandate of the U.N. offices responsible for monitoring for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in Iraq was approved by a 14-0 vote, with Russia abstaining.

Since 2005, the United States has been trying to get the Security Council

to end the work of the inspectors, who were pulled out of Iraq just before the 2003 invasion.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the efforts

of U.S.-led forces in Iraq "have demonstrated that the current government

of Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction or delivery systems."

Iraq's new leaders also have been lobbying for the council to stop using the country's oil revenue to pay the salaries of the inspectors - and to have the $60 million remaining in the U.N.'s oil-for-food account transferred to

the government.

- Associated PressEndText