May third-worst month for US troop deaths in Iraq

BAGHDAD, May 31 (Reuters) The US military reported three more deaths in Iraq today, taking the death toll to 122 for May, the worst month for US forces in more than two years.

May is now the third-worst month overall in the campaign for US soldiers, behind November 2004, when 137 soldiers died, and April 2004, when 135 were killed.

A total of 3,473 US soldiers have been killed since the start of the invasion in March 2003.

In the latest deaths, two soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb yesterday in southwestern Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

Two more were wounded.

Another soldier wounded by a roadside bomb in Baghdad's northwest on Monday died of his wounds on Tuesday.

The US military said another eight soldiers were wounded in a suicide car bomb attack at a checkpoint in the Sunni Arab enclave of Adamiya in northern Baghdad yesterday. Three Iraqi civilians, including a child, were also wounded.

The US military has said it expects to suffer greater casualties while it pours thousands of extra troops into Baghdad and other areas as part of a major security crackdown aimed at averting all-out sectarian civil war.

REUTERS HK KN2126