CNN: Nine more U.S. troops die in Iraq; Reuters: 11 dead

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Sunday, April 18, 2004 Posted: 11:16 AM EDT (1516 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Nine U.S. troops have died from combat wounds over the weekend, the U.S. military announced Sunday.

Since the start of the war, 698 Americans have been killed, 502 of them in hostile actions.

Three Marines were killed in fierce fighting Saturday near Iraq's border with Syria, the military said.

And three U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday when their 1st Armored Division convoy was ambushed near the southern Iraqi town of Ad Diwaniyah.

A seventh American, who was assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit, also was killed Saturday in fighting west of Baghdad in the violent Al Anbar province.
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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/18/iraq.main/index.html

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040418/ts_nm/iraq_dc

Report: 11 U.S. Troops, Dozens of Iraqis Killed
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five U.S. Marines were killed in a day-long battle and six U.S. soldiers were killed in other clashes during a weekend of bloodletting across Iraq (news - web sites), a U.S. newspaper and the military said.

A reporter for the St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper wrote that dozens of Iraqis were killed along with the five Marines in 14 hours of fighting Saturday in western Iraq near the Syrian border. There was no official confirmation of the deaths.

Marine intelligence told the reporter traveling with the Marines that nearly 300 Iraqi fighters launched an offensive, setting off a roadside bomb to lure Marines from their base and then firing 24 mortar rounds.

"It doesn't feel real. It doesn't look real," Lance Corporal Dustin Myshrall told the newspaper. At least nine Marines were wounded and more than 20 Iraqi fighters were captured and taken to the main Marine base near the western town of al-Qaim.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040418/ts_nm/iraq_dc