Tourists gather around anti-war activists from various organisations as they lie between mock coffins, representing dead American. soldiers, during their protest outside the White House in Washington, Wednesday. Over a dozen demonstrators called for the withdrawal of the U.S. military from Iraq. - REUTERS
BAGHDAD (Reuters):
THE NUMBER of United States military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said yesterday, and the military warned it expected the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq to continue the bloody tactics of his predecessor.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have also been killed since the U.S.-led invasion more than three years ago to overthrow Saddam Hussein, igniting an insurgency by his once-dominant Sunni Arab minority that is showing little sign of easing.
The U.S. military said it believed the real identity of al-Qaeda's new leader in Iraq was Egyptian-born Abu Ayyub al-Masri and that it expected him to adopt the same methods as his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a June 7 air raid.
KEY INFORMATION
On a day when at least 24 Iraqis lost their lives in five separate attacks, an official in Baghdad said the security forces had seized documents giving key information about the militant group's network and its leaders in Iraq.
"We believe this is the beginning of the end of al Qaeda in Iraq," national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.
Rubaie told Reuters earlier this year the insurgency against the U.S.-backed, Shi'ite-led government had been defeated.
But violence has continued to rage, killing hundreds of people since.
In yesterday's bloodiest attack, gunmen stopped a minibus taking 10 labourers to work in the town of Baquba, forced them to get off and killed them, a police source said.
