Casualties mounting as more US troops arrive

Iraq:The first reinforcements of US troops under the new Bush strategy began to flow into the Baghdad region over the weekend.

A 3,200-member brigade of the US 82nd Airborne Division arrived in Baghdad and will be ready to join the fresh drive to quell sectarian violence in the capital by February 1st, the American military said yesterday.

The new troops will "assist Iraqi security forces to clear, control and retain key areas of the capital city in order to reduce violence and to set the conditions for a transition to full Iraqi control of security in the city," the military said in a statement.

News of political progress came on the day a British soldier on patrol was killed in a roadside bomb blast in Basra, southern Iraq. In other violence, a bomb left in a bag struck a small bus carrying people to work in a predominantly Shia area in Baghdad, killing seven passengers and wounding 15.

A car bomb also exploded outside a restaurant in eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five, according to police.A suicide car bomber targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed one woman and wounded five other people in the northern city of Mosul.

Earlier, the military said four US soldiers and a marine were killed in combat on Saturday in Anbar province, the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, raising that day's toll among American forces to at least 24.

Iraqi officials, meanwhile, said the gunmen who attacked the provincial headquarters in the Shia holy city of Karbala, killing five other US troops on Saturday, were wearing military uniforms and drove up in black SUVs commonly used by foreign dignitaries - an apparent attempt to impersonate Americans.

The local governor said the gunmen stormed into the building during a US-Iraqi meeting to discuss security measures ahead of the Shia Ashoura festival.

The deaths of the US troops, combined with a helicopter crash that killed 12 US soldiers, made Saturday the deadliest day for US forces in two years. It was also the third-highest of any single day since the war began in March 2003. The heavy toll comes at a critical time of rising congressional opposition to George Bush's decision to dispatch 21,500 additional soldiers to the conflict to try to curb sectarian slaughter.

The military gave little information on the crash of the army Black Hawk helicopter during good weather in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.