Mosul Truck Bomb Kills 5 US Troops

David Hickman, 23, was last of some 4,500 to die

(NEWSER) - On Nov. 14, just a month before the final US troops left Iraq, a 23-year-old soldier lost his life to an improvised explosive device. David Emanuel Hickman was the last American to be killed in a war that cost some 4,500 Americans their lives, the AP reports. With the US mission over, his family and friends are remembering him as a jokester with the nickname "Zeus" (because, he playfully said, his physique was so impressive the gods would be envious); as an outside linebacker who was the linchpin of a defense so complicated his high school had to scrap it after he graduated because no other teen could figure it out; as someone with a goal of one day joining the Special Forces, and who, in the words of a friend, "didn’t sign up to get his life on track. He wanted to be a physically and mentally elite soldier." More»

Iraqi crackdown, US strikes helped

(NEWSER) - As the US approaches its end-of-year deadline for withdrawing all troops from Iraq, August saw a milestone: It was the first month since the US-led invasion began in March 2003 that saw no American military deaths. The previous record was one soldier death in December 2010, and a military spokesperson notes that there have been two other months that saw no hostile deaths—but did see at least one non-combat death, “which includes accidents or illness,” she tells AFP . Since the invasion began, 4,474 American troops have died. More»

At least 50 dead

(NEWSER) - A suicide bomber posing as a police recruit killed at least 50 people and injured more than 150 more in Iraq today. Many of the dead were police or their prospective recruits, who had gathered at a parade ground in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, the New York Times reports. More»

Military logs show US did keep track

(NEWSER) - More from the analysis of WikiLeaks’ huge file dump: US military logs reveal 15,000 previously unrecorded civilian deaths in Iraq. As reported yesterday , the Iraq war logs show that, despite denying it did so, the US did keep records of Iraqi fatalities. Those fatalities totaled 109,032 between 2004 and 2009, of which 66,000 were civilians and 3,771 were “friendly” allied soldiers. Iraq Body Count, which monitors civilian deaths, concluded 15,000 of those civilian deaths had not yet been recorded. More»

(AP) - Attackers paid $10,000 to get a bomb-laden truck past checkpoints and next to the Iraqi Finance Ministry in last week's attacks, one of the suspected masterminds said in a confession broadcast today. Seeking to fend off widespread criticism over security lapses, the Iraqi military released what it said was the confession of a Sunni man it identified as the planner of one of the two suicide truck bombings targeting government buildings in Baghdad. More»