I thought combat operations were over.
"Two US service members killed in Iraq " by New York Times / January 4, 2011
BAGHDAD — Two members of the US military were killed in central Iraq over the weekend, the first such deaths this year at a time when American casualties here have become a rarity.
The deaths occurred Sunday night, amid two days of attacks against Iraqi security forces and the killing of a Christian woman in her home in Baghdad. Police officials said they believed the killing was a robbery not related to her religion.
The attacks on Iraqi forces began shortly after 7 p.m. Sunday and seemed to be coordinated. Over the course of two hours, gunmen using silencers killed a police colonel, an army colonel, two police commissioners, a colonel from the traffic police, and a municipal employee, all in central and eastern Baghdad.
The attacks resembled a similar wave of killings two weeks earlier, also involving silencers, that left several security members dead, according to an official at the Ministry of the Interior.
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Related: Occupation Iraq: "Al-CIA-Duh" Canceled Christmas
And look where the Globe made me go to find the censored cut:
"The attacks on Sunday were most likely in retaliation for recent arrests of Al Qaeda leaders, said Adnan al-Aside, under secretary of the ministry, who said that the police had lately started successful undercover operations against terrorist groups.
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