"This was one incident resulting in the death of two US service members. These are the first deaths of any US service member in 2011."

Two US occupation soldiers in Iraq was killed late Sunday, the first casualties in the year of 2011, taking the death toll of soldier killed in the war-torn country to 4,432 since the 2003 US-led invasion.


"Two US service members were killed in central Iraq Sunday night," a statement from the US occupation military said on Monday.
"This was one incident resulting in the death of two US service members. These are the first deaths of any US service member in 2011," a spokeswoman for the military said, without giving further details on how the two were killed, or to which branch of the military they belonged.


The latest deaths brings to 4,432 the number of American soldiers to have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, according to an AFP tally based on data from independent website www.icasualties.org.


According to the website, 60 members of the US military were killed in 2010.
Some 50,000 US troops remain in the country, but a security accord between Baghdad and Washington requires that they be withdrawn by the end of 2011.