Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Two U.S. soldiers were killed in attacks in Iraq's western province of al-Anbar and Baghdad's Arab Jabour suburb, as American forces pursued an operation to rid the country of al-Qaeda fighters. Both incidents took place on Jan. 19, the U.S. military said today in separate e-mailed statements. A roadside bomb attack killed the soldier in Arab Jabour. The other soldier died while fighting in al-Anbar. Further details weren't available.
The U.S. and Iraqi forces on Jan. 8 embarked on operation Phantom Phoenix, a campaign targeting al-Qaeda and other extremist elements inside Iraq. Arab Jabour was hit on the third day of the campaign and again on Jan. 16. More than 80,000 pounds (36,287 kilograms) of ordnance was dropped in the first two strikes, the military said.
A third air strike on Arab Jabour late yesterday hit more than 10 targets, the military said in an e-mailed statement. F-18 jet fighters and B-1 bombers, including Air Force, Navy and Marine aircraft, were used.
Yesterday's attacks were focused on weapons caches and improvised explosive devices, which are frequently used in roadside attacks against coalition forces. The use of IEDs has prevented ``our forces from entering into areas that we have not been before,'' said Colonel Terry Ferrell, a U.S. military commander, and the latest strikes ``will allow us to get our ground troops further into'' such areas.
A total of 3,926 U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq, of whom 3,194 were killed in action. More than 28,900 have been wounded, 12,942 of them so seriously that they couldn't return to duty, according to figures on the Department of Defense Web site.