Deadliest day in 2 years for U.S. forces

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. military on Sunday reported six more American troops killed in fighting the day before, raising the toll to 25 in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Iraq in two years.\nFour U.S. soldiers and a Marine were killed Saturday during combat in Anbar, the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, the military said. A roadside bomb also struck a security patrol northeast of Baghdad, killing one soldier.\nSaturday's carnage also included 12 soldiers killed in a Army Black Hawk helicopter crash northeast of Baghdad, five killed in a militant attack in the holy Shiite city of Karbala and two others slain elsewhere in roadside bombings.\nThe parliamentary bloc loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, meanwhile, ended its nearly two-month political boycott after reaching a compromise in which a parliamentary committee would take up the group's demands for a timetable for Iraqi forces to take over security and the withdrawal of U.S. forces.\n"We announce our return to parliament, we will attend today's session, and the ministers will resume their work to serve the people," Bahaa al-Araji, one of 30 lawmakers loyal to al-Sadr, said during a news conference attended by Sunni parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. Al-Sadr also has six loyalist ministers in the 38-member Cabinet.\nThe decision appeared to be a way for both sides to save face while allowing al-Sadr's bloc, whose support is crucial to Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to regain legislative influence ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad.\n"We are on the verge of a new era. We will be victorious and we will achieve the major change through unity and fraternity and be our army's regain of its strength, taking responsibility and fighting terrorism," al-Maliki said separately during a ceremony for military academy students.\nThe first reinforcements of U.S. troops have already started to flow into the region. A brigade of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, part of the buildup, has arrived in Baghdad and its 3,200 soldiers will be ready to join the fresh drive to quell sectarian violence in the capital by the first of the month, the American military said Sunday.\nBut the deadly toll among U.S. forces comes at a critical time of rising congressional opposition to President Bush's decision to dispatch 21,500 additional soldiers to the conflict.