The Pentagon has announced the US military death toll in Iraq has exceeded 1,000, nearly 18 months after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
Underlining that much of Iraq remains a dangerous place, two Italian woman aid workers and two Iraqis were kidnapped in broad daylight in central Baghdad in a brazen raid yesterday that will alarm foreigners already edgy over widespread kidnappings.
In one of the biggest strikes against guerrillas, the US military said as many as 100 militants had been killed in the volatile town of Falluja, some 30 miles west of Baghdad. US warplanes launched fresh air strikes on Falluja today.
In Baghdad, 24 Iraqi militants and a US soldier were killed in clashes in the Sadr City slums. One US soldier was killed in the west of the capital and two more in the Baghdad area. One US soldier was killed and another wounded in an attack on a convoy today near the town of Balad. Insurgents also attacked a US military convoy in western Baghdad this morning, setting three military vehicles on fire and wounding at least three troops.
Official figures before today's deaths showed 997 soldiers and three Defence Department workers had died in Iraq.
"We remember, honour and mourn the loss of all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice defending freedom," said a White House spokesman.
Mr John Kerry, Democratic challenger to President George W. Bush in the presidential election in November, said it was "a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq."
Mr Kerry has tried to make Iraq a major campaign issue. "Of all the wrong choices that President Bush has made, the most catastrophic choice is the mess that he has made in Iraq," Mr Kerry told a town hall meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Mr Bush, campaigning in Missouri, hit back: "No matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops, we were right to make America safer by removing Saddam Hussein from power."
As well as the 1,000 dead - three-quarters of them in combat - nearly 7,000 US troops have been wounded since the invasion in March last year.
In the Baghdad kidnapping, 20 men armed with AK-47 assault rifles and pistols with silencers stopped vehicles in a busy commercial area of the capital and raided a building housing the humanitarian organisation Bridge to Baghdad, witnesses said.
They seized Italian woman aid workers Ms Simona Pari and Ms Simona Torretta and the two Iraqis, a male Bridge to Baghdad employee and a woman working for another Italian organisation Intersos.
Italy has about 2,700 troops, the third largest contingent, serving with US-led forces in Iraq and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's pro-US government has refused to bow to guerrilla demands that they should be withdrawn. Insurgents kidnapped and killed Italian journalist Mr Enzo Baldoni last month. In April, kidnappers killed Italian security guard Mr Fabrizio Quattrocchi.
The Italian women were involved in an initiative designed to boost school attendance in Basra and Baghdad - including the capital's Sadr City slums, home to millions of Shias.
The bold nature of the abductions raised the stakes in kidnappings that have gripped Iraq since April. Foreigners from more than two dozen countries have been kidnapped as guerrillas try to force foreign troops and firms to leave Iraq. More than 20 foreign hostages have been killed.
The latest abductions are likely to fuel uncertainty over the fate of two French journalists, Mr Christian Chesnot and Mr Georges Malbrunot, who are still held hostage despite intense diplomatic efforts to free them.