U.S. military death toll rises above 100 for month, making April deadliest of 2007 so far

BAGHDAD — Five U.S. troops were killed over the weekend in Iraq, the military said Monday, pushing the death toll for April past 100 in the deadliest month for American forces this year.

A suicide bomber, meanwhile, blew himself up during a Shiite funeral in a volatile area north of Baghdad, the deadliest in a series of attacks that killed at least 51 people nationwide.

The bomber detonated his explosives about 6:30 p.m. inside a tent where mourners were gathered in Khalis, a flashpoint Shiite enclave in Diyala province, where U.S.-Iraqi forces have seen fierce fighting with Sunni and Shiite militants.

Officials in Diyala and Baghdad said at least 32 people were killed and 63 wounded in the blast, which occurred four days after a suicide car bomber killed 10 Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint in the city, 50 miles north of Baghdad.

Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for that attack in an area where Sunni Arab insurgents are thought to have fled to escape the security crackdown in Baghdad that U.S. and Iraqi troops launched Feb. 14.

The killings of the Americans came as U.S. troops have been increasingly deployed on the streets of Baghdad and housed with Iraqi troops in joint security operations away from their heavily fortified bases, raising their vulnerability to attacks.

A series of explosions rocked central Baghdad Monday night and witnesses reported seeing smoke rising from the heavily fortified Green Zone. The U.S. military said it had no immediate information on the blasts.

About a dozen blasts began about 10 p.m. and lasted about five minutes.

Iraqi police said several mortar shells landed in the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies, the Iraqi government headquarters and thousands of American troops on the west bank of the Tigris River.

On Sunday, three American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb while on a combat patrol in eastern Baghdad, the military said. A U.S. soldier was slain Saturday by small arms fire in the same part of the city — a predominantly Shiite area where American and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations as part of the nearly 11-week-old operation to quell sectarian violence.

A Marine also was killed Sunday in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of the capital, the military said.