Surging Backward

AP:

Five American soldiers were killed and seven wounded in a coordinated attack in southern Baghdad involving a roadside bomb and rocket-propelled grenades, the U.S. military announced Friday....

The deaths brought to 99 the number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq this month, according to an Associated Press count.

The death toll for the past three months _ 329 _ made it the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.