US military losses in Iraq for September amounted to 70, the lowest monthly figure since July 2006, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures. The figure also marks the fourth consecutive decline in the monthly death toll following a high of 121 in May. June saw 93 deaths, July 82 and August 79. The monthly toll in July 2006 was 53.
According to AFP, two American troops died on Saturday in separate incidents, pushing the overall toll of American losses since the March 2003 invasion to 3,801. The highest monthly toll was 137 in November 2004.
Meanwhile, gunmen in the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul sprayed the car of a Sunni politician with bullets on Sunday, killing him and three bodyguards, police said. Momtaz Mahmud Ibrahim, a member of Nineveh provincial council and of the Islamic Party, the largest Sunni party in Iraq, was on his way to the office when he was attacked, said police Brigadier General Abdul Karim Khalaf.
"They shot him in his car in Al-Wahda neighbourhood and then fled," Khalaf told AFP. "He and three of his bodyguards were killed."
Another police spokesman, Brigadier General Saeed Ahmed al-Juburi, earlier conveyed three Sunni clerics were killed in Mosul on Saturday.
