BAGHDAD: An American soldier was killed in southern Iraq on Sunday, the US army said in a statement, bringing to 4,417 the number of its troops killed in the country since Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003.
"A United States Forces — Iraq — soldier was killed today in Basra province while conducting operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom," the army said, without giving further details.
There are currently 52,000 American soldiers in Iraq and the army is close to completing a major withdrawal of troops by the end of August — when numbers will fall to 50,000 — as it declares an end to its combat mission here.
The withdrawal of the last US combat brigade on Thursday was hailed as a symbolic moment for the controversial American presence in Iraq, more than seven years since the US-invasion that toppled Saddam.
However, US troops continue to conduct joint operations with Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Diyala, Nineveh and Kirkuk provinces under a joint security agreement outside the scope of regular US army missions in Iraq.
