'More troops' call as Iraq murders soar (Observer)

[Eugene]

Source: The Observer

'More troops' call as Iraq murders soar

234 bodies dumped in Baghdad in only 11 days

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday May 13, 2007
The Observer

The US military surge in Iraq, designed to turn around the course
of the war, appears to be failing as senior US officers admit they
need yet more troops and new figures show a sharp increase in
the victims of death squads in Baghdad.

In the first 11 days of this month, there have already been 234
bodies - men murdered by death squads - dumped around the
capital, a dramatic rise from the 137 found in the same period
of April. Improving security in Baghdad and reducing death-squad
activity was described as one of the key aims of the US surge of
25,000 additional troops, the final units of whom are due to arrive
next month.

In a further setback, the US military announced yesterday the
loss of an entire patrol south of Baghdad, with five soldiers dead
and three others missing, after they were ambushed by insurgents
in the town of Mahmoudiya.

The new figures emerged as the commander of US forces in
northern Iraq, Major General Benjamin Mixon, admitted he did not
have enough soldiers to contain the escalating violence in Diyala
province, which neighbours Baghdad and has become the focus
of the heaviest fighting between largely Sunni insurgent groups
and the US army, which has seen casualties increase by 300
per cent. Sixty-one US soldiers have been killed in Diyala this
year, compared with 20 in all of last year.

-snip-

Read more: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2078422,00.html