Five Soldiers Die in Roadside Blast in Iraq

Sunday was a bad day for U.S. soldiers in Iraq, as five were killed in by roadside bombs in Baghdad. Four of the casualties occurred in a single attack that happened just north of the city in one of the more violent spots in Iraq.

The fighting happened in North Baghdad, where soldiers began firing on Iraqi soldiers from the rooftop of a building. This gunfire prompted some fierce firefighting in the middle of a crowded street that happens to sit in a Sunni hotbed, just east of the Tigris River. U.S. helicopters were seen patrolling overhead during the attack, which left two civilians dead and at least four more injured.

According to a report, four U.S. soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near the province of Diyala. That area, which is known to have a mix of different religions, has seen increased fighting in recent months. In addition to those killed, the report indicated that at least two more U.S. soldiers were wounded.

In a different incident, a U.S. soldier was killed at a roadside checkpoint just north of Baghdad. That soldier was a part of a patrol unit that was checking for such bombs at the roadside checkpoint. That incident saw two more wounded soldiers.

With the uprise in Iraqi insurgency, more U.S. soldiers have been deployed to the capital in order to help Iraqi soldiers control the fighting. The increased level of fighting seems to have occurred as a result of an incident more than a year ago, when a Shiite mosque in Samarra was bombed. Officials believe that this fighting comes as a direct result of the tenuous situation associated with the bombing.

With these casualties, the death toll in Iraq since the beginning of the war is now 3,239. 114 of those have occurred since the recent security operation in Iraq began on February 14. In the six weeks leading up to the start of that plan, the U.S. military reports that 40 soldiers were killed.

Meanwhile, no plan looks to be in place that would scale the number of American fighters back. Despite the violence and turmoil, U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad was optimistic about the prospects in Iraq after his talk with Sunni representatives this month.

The discussions, as described by ambassador Khalilzad, were done in order to bride some of the gaps in political and religious belief that had left the two sides feeling quite testy.