Some Iraqis sympathized with US forces yesterday as the American death toll in the Iraq war surpassed 2,000. But others noted that many more Iraqis had died in the conflict and said they hope the US "occupiers" will soon go home.
"I hope the number of Americans who die goes even higher," said Omar Ahmed, 36, the Sunni Arab owner of an electricity shop in Dora, one of the most violent parts of Baghdad.
The somber milestone was announced on Tuesday, and the total rose to 2,001 yesterday when the military announced that a soldier had died the day before in a vehicle accident near Camp Bucca, a US detention center in southern Iraq.
Insurgent attacks continued. In Baghdad, militants shot and killed an Iraqi government official and his driver, a roadside bomb destroyed a Humvee in a US convoy, and a US helicopter crash landed. No American casualties were immediately reported in those attacks.
Elsewhere, an Internet statement claimed al-Qaida in Iraq has abducted two Moroccan embassy employees, and suspected insurgents gunned down five Iraqi policemen in the western city of Ramadi and two Iraqi soldiers in Tarmiyah, 48 kilometers north of the capital.
The US Senate on Tuesday observed a moment of silence in honor of the fallen Americans.
"We owe them a deep debt of gratitude for their courage, for their valor, for their strength, for their commitment to our country," said Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist.
The milestone came amid growing doubts among the US public about the Iraq conflict, launched in March 2003 to destroy Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found.
In Iraq, many people heard of the 2,000 figure on Arab satellite TV channels such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.
Some Iraqis complained the attention was misguided because far more Iraqis have died in the conflict than Americans. No one knows an exact number of Iraqi deaths, but there is some consensus - including from a US military spokesman and outside experts - that an independent count of roughly 30,000 is a relatively credible tally of Iraqi civilian deaths.
An Associated Press count of war-related Iraqi deaths from the time Iraq's elected government took office on April 28 through Tuesday found at least 3,870 Iraqi deaths in that period alone. More than two-thirds were civilians while the rest were Iraqi security personnel.
(The Associated Press)