October became the deadliest month for US soldiers in Iraq in nearly two years on Saturday with the announcement of the death of a US Marine in the western Anbar province. A brief military statement said the Marine died from wounds sustained in an attack on Friday in Anbar, the heartland of Iraq's Sunni Muslim insurgency.
It brought the number of US forces killed so far this month to 98, the highest since January 2005 when 107 were killed, capping a difficult week over Iraq for US President George W. Bush ahead of the November 7 congressional elections.
The violence is even harder on Iraqis. The US commander in Iraq said this week 300 Iraqi security forces were killed during the holy month of Ramazan, which has just ended.
Gunmen kidnapped 11 Iraqi soldiers at a fake checkpoint north of Baghdad on Saturday, officials said. That incident drove home the difficulties of building an effective Iraqi security force, a key plank in Bush's plans for an eventual withdrawal of 140,000 US troops.
Residents in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, said there were clashes in the streets on Saturday and US forces used loudspeakers to warn people to stay in their homes. Six Iraqis, including three women and two children, were killed in Ramadi on Saturday in what police and a hospital doctor said was a dawn airstrike.
The US military said it had no reports of airstrikes at that time but that troops came under attack several times on Friday and responded with tank fire and "precision munitions" - a phrase commonly associated with air-launched missiles. The latest violence underlines the challenges Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shia, and his US backers face in restoring order three years after the US-led invasion.
In a joint statement after a meeting with US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad late on Friday, Maliki said his government had "timelines" for progress - employing the word at the heart of a public clash of wills this week between Maliki and Washington.
Maliki was angered this week when Khalilzad seemed to assure impatient American voters that the Iraqi leader was following a US-backed timetable of performance "benchmarks". He hit back with a declaration that no one could impose timetables on Iraq.
The publicised reconciliation may help ease electoral pressure on Bush, whose Republicans face possible loss of control of Congress. Dismay over Bush's Iraq policy is a critical factor in voter intentions.
US officials this week were left struggling to explain their exit strategy from Iraq after Maliki denied he was working to a schedule and sharply criticised US security policy. "The Iraqi government has made clear the issues that must be resolved with timelines for them to take positive steps forward on behalf of the Iraqi people," Friday's statement said.
Apparently addressing speculation in Baghdad that Washington could try to ditch Maliki, it added: "The United States fully supports their goals and will help make them a success." Washington is anxious for Maliki to crack down on Shia militias and death squads blamed for much of the killing.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Saturday hundreds of people every month were abducted, tortured and killed by death squads believed to include security forces.
"Evidence suggests that Iraqi security forces are involved in these horrific crimes, and thus far the government has not held them accountable," said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division. Maliki, whose Shia-led coalition relies on militia-linked political groups for support, told Reuters this week that his priority was fighting Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda, rather than disarming Shia militias.
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