Death Toll Mounts for U.S. in Iraq

An American soldier was killed in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday, making April the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Iraq this year.

Also Friday, U.S. troops acting on tips from Iraqi intelligence killed the reputed Al Qaeda boss in Samarra, site of a Shiite shrine bombing two months ago.

The latest American death, which occurred Thursday evening, brought the number of U.S. troops who have died this month in Iraq to at least 69.

Although that figure is well below some of the deadliest months of the Iraq conflict, it marks a sharp increase from March, when 31 U.S. service members were killed. January’s death toll was 62 and February’s 55.

Reasons for the higher toll in April were unclear.

The increase comes at a time when the U.S. military says sectarian violence among Iraqis is declining after a sharp rise in the wake of the Feb. 22 bombing in Samarra.

The attack triggered reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics.

The raid on the purported safe house of the group Al Qaeda in Iraq took place about nine miles north of Samarra, U.S. officials said.

The target of the raid, Hamadi Tahki Nissani, was killed when he tried to escape, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Two other insurgents were killed, one of them as he tried to throw a grenade, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for a Sunni Arab political party said in an interview on Iraqi state television that two members of an undisclosed militia group had been detained in the slaying of Vice President Tariq Hashimi’s sister.

Maysoon Hashimi, 60, was shot Thursday as she left her home. Her bodyguard was also slain. Two weeks ago, the vice president’s brother, Mahmoud Hashimi, was shot and killed.