Four U.S. Marines were killed in combat Thursday in Iraq’s Anbar province, west of Baghdad, the U.S. military announced.Three of those Marines were assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, according to a military statement on Saturday.
On Friday, the U.S. military announced the death of the fourth Marine, who was assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5.
Thirty-eight U.S. troops have died in Iraq during July.
Since the start of the war, 2,565 U.S. troops have died in Iraq. Seven Department of Defense civilian employees have also died in Iraq.
Sunni mosques, cleric attacked
Gunmen attacked two Sunni mosques early Saturday in Baghdad, The Associated Press reported.
Muhammad Rassulluallah mosque in western Baghdad was sprayed with gunfire shortly after midnight, police said, adding that windows were shattered and walls damaged, according to AP. A guard was wounded.
An hour later, nearby Ashra al-Mubashara mosque was stormed, but gunmen fled when Iraqi police arrived, AP cited officials as saying. Also, police said a regional leader of the Iraqi Border Protection force was killed in Karbala, AP reported.
Four worshippers were killed in a separate mortar attack on a Sunni mosque in southern Baghdad hours earlier, Iraqi emergency police said.
The AP also reported the killing of a Sunni cleric from a tribe opposed to al Qaeda in Iraq while driving in Samarra, 60 miles (97 kilometers) north of Baghdad, according to police.
In other violence Saturday morning, 12 workers were wounded when a grenade exploded in an area of central Baghdad where day laborers line up for work, according to police. A road bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol wounded three civilians and three police officers in a north Baghdad neighborhood, police said.
U.S. troops headed for Iraq
About 3,200 members of the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will start heading to Iraq on August 6.
The announcement of their deployment came a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the Alaska-based 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team to stay an additional four months in Iraq.
The division has been training and preparing for the past 10 months, according to an Army press release from Fort Bragg.
Most of the paratroopers are infantry, but some are trained in military intelligence, engineering and police duties.
