Insurgent attacks grow more lethal

WASHINGTON – As U.S. troops patrol more heavily in Baghdad and its volatile outskirts, Iraqi insurgents are using increasingly sophisticated and lethal means of attack, including bigger roadside bombs that are resulting in greater numbers of American fatalities relative to the number of wounded.

Insurgents are deploying huge, deeply buried munitions set up to protect their territory and mounting complex ambushes that demonstrate their ability to respond rapidly to U.S. tactics.

A new counterinsurgency strategy has resulted in decreased civilian deaths in Baghdad but has placed thousands of additional American troops at greater risk in small outposts in the capital and other parts of the country.

“It is very clear that the number of attacks against U.S. forces is up” and that they have grown more effective in Baghdad, especially in recent weeks, said Maj. Gen. James E. Simmons, deputy commander for operations in Iraq.

At the same time, he said, attacks on Iraqi security forces have declined slightly, citing figures that compare the period of mid-February to mid-May to the preceding three months. “The attacks are being directed at us and not against other people,” he said.

May, with 127 American fatalities, was the third-deadliest month for U.S. troops since the 2003 invasion. As in the conflict’s two deadliest months for U.S. troops – 137 died in November 2004 and 135 in April of that year – the overarching cause of May’s toll is the ongoing, large-scale U.S. military operations.

Simmons called the high U.S. losses in May “a very painful and heart-wrenching experience.”

The intensity of combat and the greater lethality of attacks on U.S. troops is underscored by the lower ratio of wounded to killed for May, which fell to about 4.8 to 1 – compared with an average of 8 to 1 during the Iraq conflict, according Pentagon data.

“The closer you get to a stand-up fight, the closer you’re going to get to that 3-to-1 ratio” that typified 20th-century U.S. warfare, said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a defense information Web site.

Simmons said that in May, the number of armor-piercing weapons known as explosively formed projectiles roughly matched the April high of 65, and the main source of increased U.S. deaths was “large and buried IEDs,” or improvised explosive devices.

U.S. deaths have risen sharply in some of Baghdad’s outlying regions, such as Diyala province, where Sunni and Shiite groups have escalated sectarian violence and fought back hard against American forces moving into their safe havens.

“Extremists on both sides of this thing are trying to make a statement by attacking U.S. troops,” Simmons said.

The overall percentage of U.S. military fatalities caused by roadside bombs had dipped from more than 60 percent late last year to 35 percent in February. It then rose again to 70.9 percent in May, according to research by the independent Web site icasualties.org.

Gains in defeating the bombs have not resulted in fewer deaths because the number of bombs – and the lethality of some types – have increased, military officials said.

Insurgents are also staging carefully planned, complex ambushes and retaliatory attacks as they target U.S. troops, the officials said.

While few in number, these include direct assaults on U.S. military outposts, ambushes in which American troops have been captured, and complex attacks that use multiple weapons to strike more than one U.S. target. For example, attackers will bomb a patrol and then target ground forces or aircraft that come to its aid.

“We are starting to see more sophistication and training in their attacks,” said a senior military official in Baghdad.

While the vast majority of attacks are still relatively simple and involve a single type of weapon, “clearly the trend is going in the wrong direction,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.