American Troops

U.S. military officials reported the deaths of eight American troops, including those of four Marines who drowned Thursday when their tank rolled off a bridge into a canal near Karmah, about 50 miles west of the Iraqi capital. The U.S. command said today that the deaths were not caused by hostile action. In addition, three soldiers were killed Thursday in roadside bombings near Baghdad. A fourth soldier died of "noncombat-related wounds" Tuesday near Mosul, the military announced Thursday.

CHARIKAR, Afghanistan - Abdul Shakour was working the night shift at Bagram air base repairing American vehicles when he was called to an emergency meeting. The news was bad: Shakour and 22 other Afghan mechanics were being laid off. After seven years at Bagram, Shakour was unceremoniously shown the door last month. He was told to return the next day to turn in his security badge and collect his final paycheck. "There aren't as many vehicles to fix and not as many soldiers around, so they don't need us anymore," Shakour said outside the base, speaking with a thick accent the English he had learned from American civilians and troops.

The U.S. military has announced the deaths of 10 troops in Iraq, including four killed Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in this capital city. Their Iraqi interpreter also died. The four American deaths, added to an earlier count on icasualties.org, brought to at least 3,627 the number of U.S. forces killed in Iraq since March 2003. Two sailors were killed Tuesday in Salahuddin province, the military said.

KABUL, Afghanistan - On the same day that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey arrived in Afghanistan for an assessment visit, six Americans were killed Saturday in attacks by Afghanistan insurgents. Hours after Dempsey arrived in the nation, five Americans - three soldiers and two civilians - were killed when a bomb-laden vehicle exploded in southeastern Zabul province. An Afghan doctor was also killed in the attack on a convoy headed to a hospital for a visit. Another American was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said.

Three Americans and two other foreign troops were killed Friday in an attack in eastern Afghanistan, officials said. Insurgents attacked Afghan and coalition forces with grenade launchers and guns, NATO forces said in a statement. The troops called in air support, and the militants withdrew. They are being pursued, the military said. Col. Greg Julian, a spokesman for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, confirmed that three of the slain troops were Americans.

Saudi Arabia's national airline declined a Postal Service request that it waive international mail rates in favor of the lower fees observed by U.S. airlines for carrying mail to American troops in the Saudi desert, a postal official said Thursday. James E. Orlando, head of international services for the Postal Service, confirmed that Saudi Arabian Airlines had charged the service nearly $1.9 million to deliver about 1.

A variety show for American troops featuring a barber shop quartet's rendition of "Lida Rose" and a chorus line of scantily clad women has been abruptly shut down after complaints from the Saudi government, military officials said Saturday.

There are more than 25,000 people in Southern California who trace their origin to the states of the former Yugoslavia and many have been passionate partisans on the sidelines of the Bosnian war. JIM BLAIR talked with a Serb, a Croat and a Bosnian Muslim who are active in their local communities about the local mood on the verge of a hoped-for peace and their communities' opinion of American involvement in a NATO peacekeeping force. * LEO MAJICH President, Croatian National Assn.

A major assault by Bosnian Serbs against the Muslim enclave of Gorazde broke through the outer defenses of the purported U.N. "safe haven" Tuesday, sending hundreds of terrified civilians fleeing and undermining the credibility of American policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The designation of Gorazde as one of six U.N.

Shocked by the savagery of Saddam Hussein's repression of the uprising against him in southern Iraq, American troops manning the Persian Gulf War's long cease-fire line say they would willingly fight their way north to Baghdad to topple the Iraqi dictator. This attitude was repeatedly evident to a reporter who spent several days touring the U.S.-occupied zone, an area embracing more than 15% of the country.

Some diversions invite comparison more readily than others. Take "The Sapphires," the most chipper film ever set in Vietnam. Already many have taken it, and liked it. If you enjoyed "Strictly Ballroom" or "The Commitments," which is to say if you fell for the slightly pushy charms of those show-business fables (one fantasy Australian, the other Irish, though directed by an Englishman), then chances are you'll go for this true-ish story of an Aborigine singing group entertaining the American troops, enemy fire be damned, in 1968 - like Bob Hope and Raquel Welch, New South Wales division.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Over the last 25 days, something unusual has happened in Afghanistan: Not one U.S. service member has been killed. The lion's share of the fighting - and dying - is now being done by Afghans. The last American troop death, from injuries suffered in a December roadside bombing, occurred Jan. 20, marking the longest stretch without a fatality since 2008 and offering a glimmer of evidence that the United States' 11-year war is in its twilight. Deaths among U.S. troops in Afghanistan last year reached a four-year low as commanders hailed a tipping point in a conflict that has claimed more than 2,100 American lives.

Amid partisan questioning from both sides in former Sen. Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing last week, a major opportunity was lost. Hagel's fellow Republicans grilled the Defense secretary nominee on past statements about Israel and his opposition to President George W. Bush's 2007 surge in Iraq. Democrats, defending their president's choice, tossed him softballs. What Hagel wasn't asked about in any depth was Afghanistan, where about 66,000 U.S. troops are still risking their lives for a mission that no longer seems clear.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Friday said he is moving up the deadline for Afghan forces to take the lead in securing their own country, a decision that could speed the withdrawal of U.S. forces in the coming months. After a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House, Obama said American troops would turn over the responsibility this spring rather than in the middle of 2013, the previous target. “What's going to happen this spring is that Afghans will be in the lead throughout the country,” Obama said at a joint news conference with Karzai.

KABUL, Afghanistan - In a second round of negotiations between the U.S. and Afghanistan here on the presence of U.S. forces beyond 2014, the two sides have held preliminary talks on legal jurisdiction over American troops, the lead American negotiator said Saturday. The U.S. has insisted that any troops serving in Afghanistan after combat forces withdraw at the end of 2014 be subject to the American, not Afghan, legal justice system, said James B. Warlick, the U.S. deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration plans on keeping 6,000 to 9,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014, fewer than previously reported, and will confine most of them to fortified garrisons near the capital, leaving Afghan troops largely without American advisors in the field to fight a still-powerful insurgency, U.S. officials said. Although it is not final, contours of the plan have become increasingly clear in the weeks since President Obama's reelection. Officials close to the discussions say the final U.S. presence will be substantially smaller than the 15,000 troops senior commanders have sought to keep after most of the 68,000 remaining American troops leave in the next two years.

GOP vice presidential nominee Paul D. Ryan said in the debate that American troops should not be placed in harm's way for humanitarian purposes, unless it is in the interest of national security. “It's got to be in the strategic national interests of our country,” the Wisconsin congressman said during his face-off Thursday night with Vice President Joe Biden in Danville, Ky. Pressed by moderator Martha Raddatz, Ryan said that every situation must be evaluated independently and that America could offer other aid, but stuck by his original statement.

Re "Afghan attacks pose threat to exit plans," Aug. 20 The Times writes, "American troops are dying at unprecedented rates at the hands of their Afghan allies. " Later an Afghan analyst says, "The conflict has been becoming worse, nastier - and the presence of foreign troops doesn't seem in the eyes of many Afghans to have brought positive changes. " After 11 years, it seems obvious from the Afghans' point of view that the word "threat" in your headline should be replaced with the word "hope.