A roadside bomb killed two US soldiers July 7 at a checkpoint outside Victory Base Camp in Baghdad. The attack follows the deadliest month for US troops in Iraq in two years. June saw 15 US soldiers killed in Iraq, nearly all in attacks by Shi'ite militias. The 46,000 US troops currently stationed in Iraq are to leave by year’s end under a 2008 withdrawal agreement. However, the White House is "offering" to keep up to 10,000 soldiers in the country beyond that deadline, if asked by Iraq's government. (AP [2], July 7)
Also July 7, Iraqi authorities unearthed a mass grave with some 900 bodies near the south-central city of Diwaniyah, al-Qadsiyah province. Provincial authorities told reporters the remains are believed to be of Kurds killed during Saddam Hussein's rule in 1980s, despite the grave's location far to the south of the Kurdish zone. (Xinhua [3], July 7)
See our last posts on Iraq and the politics of withdrawal [4], the insurgency [5], and the Kurdish struggle [6].
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