US Forces Kill 60 Insurgents Involved with Al-Qaida

U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 60 insurgent and militia fighters in intense battles over the weekend, with most of the casualties believed to have been al-Qaida fighters, officials said Sunday.
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The U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, joined a broad swath of Iraqi politicians - both Shiite and Sunni - in criticizing a nonbinding U.S. Senate resolution seen here as a recipe for splitting the country along sectarian and ethnic lines.

The U.S. military also announced the death of an American soldier killed Saturday in a roadside bombing and gunfire attack in eastern Baghdad. There were 62 U.S. military deaths in September, the lowest monthly toll since July 2006 when 43 American soldiers were killed, according to a preliminary Associated Press tally.

U.S. aircraft killed more than 20 al-Qaida in Iraq fighters who opened fire on an American air patrol northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. command said.

The firefight between U.S. aircraft and the insurgent fighters occurred Saturday about 17 miles northwest of the capital, the military said.

The aircraft observed about 25 al-Qaida insurgents carrying AK-47 assault rifles - one brandishing a rocket-propelled grenade - walking into a palm grove, the military said.

"Shortly after spotting the men, the aircraft were fired upon by the insurgent fighters," it said.

The military did not say what kind of aircraft were involved but the fact that the fighters opened fire suggests they were low-flying Apache helicopters. The command said more than 20 of the group were killed and four vehicles were destroyed. No Iraqi civilians or U.S. soldiers were hurt.

"Coalition forces have dealt significant blows to Al-Qaida Iraq in recent months, including the recent killing of the Tunisian head of the foreign fighter network in Iraq and the blows struck in the past 24 hours," military spokesman Col. Steven Boylan told The Associated Press.