The latest bombing raised to 4,271 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq since 2003. But the pace of killings has slowed dramatically in the relative calm that followed a troop buildup in 2007. Last month, nine U.S. troops were killed.
The last time five died in a single combat incident in Iraq was in March 2008, when a suicide bomber attacked a foot patrol in Baghdad.
Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, and Diyala province to the east remain rife with tension and are still considered dangerous.
Nineveh has long been burdened by Kurdish-Arab strife. Since 2003, the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq have dominated the province's political life.
Arabs, who initially rejected the U.S.-sponsored political process, are now seeking to assert their will after winning provincial elections.
Kurds and Arabs are bickering in particular over areas north of Mosul, which Kurds contend should be annexed to the semiautonomous Kurdistan region. The rival groups are grappling with the legacy of Saddam Hussein's policy of displacing Kurds to create an Arab majority in the region. Kurds seek to correct what they view as a historical wrong; Arabs see themselves as being humiliated.
The Sunni insurgency also is founded on the alienation of former higher-ranking military commanders, who were marginalized in the first years after the U.S.-led invasion.
Such frictions are playing out along a 300-mile "green line" that separates the rest of Iraq from the Kurdish region. The U.S. military is increasingly playing the role of mediator to avert greater violence.
The senior U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. Ray Odierno, suggested in interviews that combat troops could stay on in Diyala and Nineveh's cities after June 30.
But the role of combat troops still needs to be formalized by the Iraqi and American sides. U.S. generals have contended that some combat forces could remain in cities as long as their mission is defined as advising and training Iraqi forces.
Sectarian and political tensions are rampant in much of Iraq. Sunni Arab paramilitary fighters are under pressure from the Shiite-led government, and there are concerns that some of them could be recruited back into the insurgency that raged before 2007.
Their decision to ally with the U.S. and oppose the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq was credited with helping calm the country. But the government has now jailed some of the paramilitary leaders, and many fighters think the U.S. is not doing enough to protect them.
--
ned.parker@latimes.com
Ammer is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Saif Hameed contributed to this report.
