Meanwhile...

CNN:

Nine coalition troops were killed in Iraq over the last two days, four of them in the deadliest attack on British troops since November, the U.S. and British militaries said Thursday.

The four British troops and a civilian translator were ambushed early Thursday as they returned from a mission west of the southern city of Basra, British military spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Stratford-Wright said.

Insurgents wielding small arms and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the troops' armored Humvee about 340 miles (547 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, said Stratford-Wright. A roadside bomb also was employed in the attack, he said.

The other five were American. Fascinating that CNN still refers to it as a "coalition."