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Five Deaths Are U.S. Military's Largest Single-Day Loss In Iraq Since 2009

The deaths of five American troops today in central Iraq makes for an awful milestone. It is "the single largest loss of life for the American military in Iraq in the past two years," The Associated Press notes.

And, "the deaths raised to 4,459 the number of American service members who have died in Iraq, according to an Associated Press count."

Details are still coming in about what happened today. According to the AP, "two Iraqi security officials said the troops died when a barrage of at least three rockets hit an Iraqi base in eastern Baghdad on Monday morning."

Al-Jazeera reports that "an Iraqi interior ministry official and an Iraqi police officer said five rockets struck the sprawling Camp Victory base which surrounds Baghdad's international airport in the outskirts of the city, but more information was not immediately available. Both Iraqi officials said that the bodies of two apparent attackers were found outside the US base, badly burned from two rockets which exploded inside their vehicle."

The BBC notes that:

"Violence has reduced in Iraq over the past few years, but there are still regular attacks and bombings. In Tikrit on Monday, a bomb exploded outside a mosque during Friday prayers, killing 16 people. Hours later, a suicide bomber attacked the hospital where the injured had been taken, killing another five."

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.