From Granma

BAGHDAD, January 7 (PL).—The number of US soldiers killed during the 21 months of the war on Iraq reached 1,350 today after another nine troops died in resistance actions.

Digital media linked to the Defense Department and the Central Command published the information, adding that since the beginning of the conflict a further 10,252 soldiers have been wounded.

This Thursday has been the most lethal since the suicide attack last month on a base in the northern locality of Mosul that resulted in the death of 14 US soldiers and 50 wounded.

Last night, seven US troops were killed when the armored vehicle in which they were traveling activated a landmine in northwest Baghdad. The soldiers were members of the First Cavalry Division and were on a patrol mission, according to the Pentagon.

A US marine died in the course of an operation against the insurgents in the western province of Al Anbar, the Central Command informed in a brief communiqué.

At the same time, it reported that another marine was killed in a confrontation with the resistance in the same province.

The level of instability is growing in this Persian Gulf country, thus casting doubt on the possibility of holding the elections scheduled for January 30. Foreign military sources have admitted the extreme gravity of the situation in four provinces.

Resistance actions against the occupation persist in spite of operations against the insurgency movement and the extension for another 30 days of the state of emergency decreed two months ago by the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

On the other hand, reporting from Washington, PL notes that according to CNN, the US Army Reserve does not have the personnel to undertake all the missions assigned to it in occupied Iraq, as stated in a memo from that military grouping.

The TV network said that the incapacity was acknowledged by Lieutenant James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, who has warned his superiors of the shortage.

More than one fifth of the 200,000 reservists have been called up for active service, and 30,000 of them are currently in Iraq, the memo states.