9 U.S. soldiers die, 20 wounded after truck bomber attacks patrol base in Diyala

Soldiers with 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment move toward a Chinook helicopter south of Baqubah last week. The battalion air assaulted into the farming community in search of al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorists that might have fled there during a clearing operation in Buhriz two days earlier.

BAGHDAD, April 24 -- A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-rigged truck into a U.S. military outpost near Baqubah on Monday, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20 in one of the deadliest single ground attacks on U.S. forces since the start of the war in Iraq, military officials said early Tuesday.

Suicide attackers rarely penetrate defenses that surround American troops, but a 10-week-old U.S. counterinsurgency strategy has placed them in outposts and police stations that some soldiers say have made them more vulnerable.

The military said the attack occurred near the capital of Diyala province, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where U.S. soldiers have been engaged in increasingly fierce fighting with Sunni insurgents. A 10th soldier was killed Monday in a roadside bombing in the Diyala town of Muqdadiyah, the military said.

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