http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2003/10/17/ap/Headlines/d7u87ed80.txtKARBALA, Iraq - U.S. combat deaths since the end of major fighting passed the 100 mark Friday after a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol confronted gunmen outside the headquarters of a Shiite Muslim cleric, triggering clashes in which three Americans and 10 Iraqis were killed, including two Iraqi policemen.
Another American soldier was killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb near Baghdad, and nine U.S. troops were wounded in a roadside bombing in the northern city of Mosul.
The four deaths made it the deadliest day for American soldiers in Iraq since Sept. 18, when three soldiers were killed in an ambush. With the latest deaths, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died by hostile fire since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1 has climbed to 101.
During a visit Friday to U.S. troops in Tikrit, Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, commander of the Army's 3rd Corps, told reporters American troops would be in Iraq for another troop rotation or even two. At current pace of a turnover of troops every year, that could mean U.S. forces would be in Iraq until 2006.
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Hey, Dubya! When you sending the twins over there?