The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Baghdad

Despite a drop in US casualties in the past six months, 2007 has proved the deadliest year for American forces in Iraq since the invasion, with at least 896 soldiers killed, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

The previous most lethal year for the American military since the US-led invasion of March 2003 was in 2004, when 846 soldiers died. Since May, when 126 soldiers were killed, casualty figures have been falling month by month with the December toll set to be the lowest since February 2004, when 20 soldiers died in the least deadly month of the war.