Ten US soldiers were killed yesterday, the US military said today, in one of the sharpest spikes of attacks on American forces in Iraq.
The bloodshed brings to at least 68 the number of US troops killed in October, an exceptionally high toll that is likely to bring renewed attention to the Iraq war in the run-up to US congressional elections in November.
President George W Bush's popularity has been hurt by growing discontent over the war and his Republican Party risks losing control of Congress in the November 7th vote.
At least 2,777 US troops have died since the 2003 invasion. Many more Iraqis have been killed, with estimates between 40,000 and 650,000 civilians.
Former US Secretary of State James Baker, who is drafting a report on possible alternatives to current US policy in Iraq, has said there is no "magic bullet" to solve Iraq's deepening problems.
Dozens of al-Qaeda-linked gunmen took to the streets in Ramadi today in a show of force to announce the city was joining an Islamic state comprising Iraq's mostly Sunni Arab provinces, witnesses said.
Witnesses in Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province, said gunmen dressed in white marched through the city as mosque loudspeakers broadcast the statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, a Sunni militant group led by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Following a request by the Iraqi government, the US military today released a senior aide of a pro-government Shia cleric and militia leader detained yesterday.
The move comes despite mounting pressure from US commanders and officials demanding that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rein in militias and their networks, blamed for some of the worst sectarian violence gripping Iraq.