The Iraqi civilian death toll also continues to rise. Meanwhile, the country's president heads for the U.S. for a medical exam.
By Garrett Therolf, Times Staff Writer 9:53 AM PDT, May 20, 2007
Six U.S. soldiers and an interpreter were killed after a roadside bomb was detonated in the western section of the capital, and a seventh American soldier was slain by a roadside bomb in Diwaniya, the military announced today.
The names of the soldiers, who died Saturday, were not released because their families had not yet been notified. The deaths brought to 3,422 the number of American troops killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, according to icasualties.org [ http://icasualties.org/ ], which tracks casualties in the conflict.
The military said the six soldiers killed in Baghdad had been working over the past week to find weapons caches that included grenades, small arms, ammunition and bomb-making materials. Their unit also discovered a house where Iraqi civilians were being tortured.
It is the second time this month that six soldiers were killed in a single blast. On May 6, a Russian photographer and six American soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb as they traveled between Baghdad and Baqubah.
Meanwhile, the deaths of Iraqi civilians continued throughout the capital. An Iraqi journalist working for the newspaper Azzaman was found dead this afternoon in western Baghdad shortly after he went missing. A car bomb exploded in a parking lot at the Ministry of Interior, killing two and injuring 10 others.
In northern Iraq, gunmen led an attack on a patrol guarding an oil pipeline near Safra, a village 40 miles southwest of Kirkuk. The commander of the patrol was injured.
On the political front, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani left Iraq today for a trip to the United States that was expected to include a medical checkup. The trip came four months after Talabani was rushed to a Jordanian hospital where doctors said he was suffering from exhaustion and dehydration caused by lung and sinus infections.
"I will go to the USA and stay nearly three weeks to lose weight and have some rest and relaxation ... away from meetings and work," Talabani, a 73-year-old Sunni Kurd, said before boarding a plane in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.
A senior Kurdish politician close to the Iraqi leader said Talabani was going for a checkup at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., that had been scheduled for weeks. The politician spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the president's plans.
garrett.therolf@latimes.com
Special correspondents in Baghdad and Kirkuk and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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