By Xinhua,
Washington : Roadside bomb attacks at the Iraq-based U.S. troops declined by nearly 90 percent from the last year, according to a newspaper report on Monday.
The USA Today report was released as one more American soldier was killed and five others wounded in an ambush in Baghdad.
Citing the Pentagon records and interviews with military leaders, the report said that a total of 11 U.S. troops were killed in May by roadside bomb blasts, compared to 92 in the same month last year.
Several factors were cited to explain the decline in attacks and fatalities, including the deployment of almost 7,000 heavily armored Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles in Iraq last year.
“They’ve taken hits that would have killed soldiers and Marines in up armored Humbees,” Adm. Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the newspaper.
The assistance of a Iraqi local security forces, the Sons of Iraq, to U.S. military by providing the on-the-ground intelligence about the roadside bombs was also a reason for the reduction, the report said.
It also thanked to the improved surveillance brought by a new security cameras that could see bomb builders up to 5 miles (8 kilometers) away, said Maj. Gen. Rick Kynch, a military commander in Baghdad.
However, Iraqi insurgents also changed their tactics by using anew bombs that were virtually indistinguishable from concrete rubble and therefore required trained eyes to spot, and pressured-detonated bombs.
According to the U.S. military, U.S. troops were hit by small-arms fire near Madain, about 20 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, leaving one killed and five injured.
The death toll of U.S. military in Iraq has reached 4,103 since the war began in March 2003, according to the military statistics.