http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=9780

October 3, 2006
Bloody Day in Iraq Leaves 263 Dead

Updated at 11:30 a.m. EDT, Oct. 3, 2006

In the last day, the body count in Iraq exploded as at least 263 were killed or found dead; 30 of those were insurgents killed in Ramadi. Tensions are particularly high due to two mass kidnappings that occurred in Baghdad. At least 16 of a total of 40 kidnap victims are still missing. Roadside bombs, mortars and simple shootings took many lives, while stray fire or mortars took the lives of several children. 45 other people were reportedly injured in those or similar attacks. Experts have noted that in previous years violence has increased during Ramadan; this year is no exception. The US government today also released the names of two Iowa National Guard soldiers killed on Saturday. Over the weekend a Marine died in a vehicle accident unrelated to fighting. Another US soldier died on Monday, bringing the total of US dead to 4. One British soldier was also killed.

At least 118 were killed in Baghdad alone, including one intelligence officer and Faris Khalil, a colonel in the Interior Ministry. At least thirteen more bodies were found throughout Baghdad on Monday, adding to the fifty that were found overnight Sunday. They were shot to death and bore signs of torture. It is believed that "sectarian death squads" killed them. Mortar attacks reportedly killed 1, injured 3 in northern Baghdad, while another mortar killed 1 and injured 8 in the Ur district. 8 fatal shooting victims were delived to a hospital in the Yarmouk district. Roadside bombs killed 3, injured 8 in the Saadoun district; wounded 3 more in the Yarmouk district and 2 in Eastern Baghdad. Another bomb targeting police killed 2, injured 2, in the Waziriya district, but whether the casualties were police or civilians is unconfirmed. A noontime bomb blast at a market in Al Nasr reportedly killed 4 and injured 13.

Twenty-four men were kidnapped from a meat processing plant in the Amel district and placed into a truck; two were shot when they refused to board the vehicle. Four men are confirmed to have escaped by blending into a crowded marketplace when they fled the truck during a stop. The other 22 are believed all dead; several have been confirmed dead. Another 14 men were kidnapped from computer stores adjacent to the Baghdad Technical University in Central Baghdad, but their fate is unknown. Two more individuals were reportedly kidnapped north of Baghdad.

At least 145 people outside the capital were killed including a leading al-Qaeda figure, Saad Tager Al-Rayashi (aka Abu Fad’ am.) Fifty bodies were discovered in Kut and at least 31 elsewhere..Today, al-Iraqiya television reported the deaths of 30 insurgents in a joint operation by multi-national forces and Iraqi police carried out in Ramadi; however, the date of the operation was not reported. Troops also detained 59 "wanted suspects." Two police officers and two firefighters were also wounded in separate incidents. In Basra, a British soldier was killed, and another was wounded in a base attack. A round also fell on a nearby home during the attack, killing two young children and wounding another. Elsewhere in Basra, gunmen killed an Iraqi intelligence office. Seven headless bodies were found in the Tigris River near Suwayra; their hands were bound.Gunmen also killed 7 in the cities of Kut, Mosul, Dhuluiya and Ishaqi. Stray fire killed a woman and child sleeping on a roof in Sadr City. Car bombs took the lives of 4 in Latifiya and 5 in Falluja. Turkish forces also bombed Kurdish villages, but the number of casualties, if any, was not released.

Compiled by Margaret Griffis.

'http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061003/pl_afp/iraqunrest

Tragic day' claims eight US soldiers in Baghdad
by Paul Schemm Tue Oct 3, 9:34 AM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - At least 17 US soldiers have been killed around Iraq since Saturday, including eight in a single day in Baghdad, the US military announced, saying the toll had brought "a tragic day".

The toll represents a dramatic spike for US casualties in Iraq which generally average no more than a couple of wounded a day, especially for the Baghdad-based forces.

"I don't have any comparative figures," said Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, who declined to say whether the toll was an increase. "We have tragic days and this was a tragic day."

Monday saw four soldiers killed when their vehicle was obliterated by a roadside bomb in northwest Baghdad, as well as four soldiers killed by small arms fire in various other spots throughout the city.

Since August, there have been many more US soldiers operating across Baghdad as part of the "phase two" of the Iraqi government's four-month-old Operation Together Forward to restore stability to the war-torn capital.

US soldiers, together with Iraqi security forces, are flooding some of the city's most troubled neighborhoods and engaging in house-to-house searches for unlicensed weapons and insurgents.

Seven of the other US casualties since Saturday have been in the western Al-Anbar province, the center of a fierce anti-US insurgency that generally claims the lion's share of fatalities.

Since the summer, there has been an increase in US deaths there as well, though US military sources in the province say this is because of increased efforts to quash rebel strongholds in the towns of Ramadi, Hit and Haditha.

The number of US servicemen that have died since the March 2003 invasion is 2,723 according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

Violence targeting ordinary Iraqis has been higher than usual as well, with the US military reporting that suicide bombings over the past weeks have been at an all time high.

In the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Saidiyah, a man wearing a belt of explosives blew himself up in a fish market killing two people and wounding 19, according to officials in the defense ministry.

A bomb exploded near a well-known Shiite mosque in the middle class neighborhood of Karrada, killing one person and wounding nine, while another bomb claimed two lives in the northern neighborhood of Qahira.

In addition to bombs, Baghdad residents have to watch out for mortar shells as militants in rival neighborhoods fire indiscriminately at each other's residents.

One person was killed and another wounded in the Abu Chir neighborhood in southern Baghdad, while 10 people were wounded in a mortar attack in Mussayib, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of the capital.

In nearby Baquba, capital of Diyalah province, the same brutal sectarian-driven violence was manifest with nine people being killed in various incidents around the city.

Police also discovered on a highway north Baquba seven bodies of a father, his five children and a nephew, bound and shot through the head. The Shiite family had been kidnapped earlier by gunmen.

Three bodies also turned up just south of the northern oil city of Kirkuk.

If I read this I would weep. Thanks, for what you do Snuffysmith. Unbiased reporting.