Nine more dead, who khows many wounded……and the war drums keep beating as the U.S. claims the deadly armor-piercing roadside bombs are made in Iran……. and this…..

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Iraqi police say up to 90 people were killed in a suicide attack on Shiite pilgrims in Hillah.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Nine U.S. soldiers were killed in two bomb attacks north of Baghdad, the military said on Tuesday, in the deadliest day for U.S. forces since they launched a security crackdown in the capital three weeks ago.

Commanders had warned that militants may launch assaults outside Baghdad, where more than 90,000 Iraqi and U.S. troops have intensified operations to rein in sectarian violence.

In the worst of Monday’s two attacks against U.S. forces, six soldiers were killed and three were wounded by a blast near their vehicles in Salahaddin province, a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold north of Baghdad.

In a separate incident, three U.S. soldiers were killed and one wounded by another blast near their vehicles in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.

The U.S. military did not specify if the two blasts were caused by a roadside bomb or a car bomb.

But U.S. commanders are concerned about the increased use by insurgents of a particularly deadly type of armor-piercing roadside bomb which, U.S. commanders say, is made in Iran. The bombs have killed more than 170 U.S. troops in Iraq since 2004.

More than 3,170 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Read more at Reuters