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http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/me...ain/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A roadside bomb blast killed 14 Marines and a civilian interpreter Wednesday as they rode in a vehicle near Haditha, Iraq, U.S. military officials said. The military said the bomb struck the amphibious assault vehicle about 1 mile (about 2 kilometers) south of Haditha, along the Euphrates River about 135 miles northwest of Baghdad. The military said one Marine was wounded. On Monday, six Marine sniper team members were killed in a firefight near the same city and a Marine was killed in nearby Hit. Twenty-one Marines have been killed in the region in three days. The number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war stands at 1,820, according to U.S. military reports. All 21 Marines who were killed Monday and Wednesday were assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2, part of the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force. Haditha and Hit are Sunni Arab cities along the Euphrates River about 135 miles (217 kilometers) and 95 miles (152 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, respectively. U.S. and Iraqi troops recently have been trying to clear insurgents out of both cities.

WHY?

At least seven marines were killed on Monday in the same area of Iraq. The US military said that the seven died in two separate attacks. But Ansar al-Sunna, an extremist group linked with the al-Qaeda network, said in an internet statement posted today that it had killed eight Marines and captured a ninth in an ambush near Haditha. The group said it had killed some of the Marines by "slitting their throats" while others were shot. Today's killings brought the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 1,811, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

I'm genuinely sorry for the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, children friends and lovers of these brave US servicemen. If there deaths had some purpose then you could believe their deaths were not in vain but...

Worse, I know that every dead US soldier means at least ten Iraqi, most of them innocent. Shame, shame, shame.