The rising toll coincides with stepped-up efforts to bring key strongholds under control.

The rising toll coincides with stepped-up efforts to bring key strongholds under control.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. deaths in Iraq this month are approaching 100, making it the second-deadliest month since American forces invaded the country in March 2003, Pentagon records show.
The worst month was last April, with 135 deaths, when the insurgency intensified and U.S. Marines fought fierce battles in Fallujah, only to be withdrawn from the city. That was part of a failed attempt to put the now-defunct Fallujah Brigade of U.S. and allied Iraqi forces in charge.
Also, Margaret Hassan, a kidnapped aid worker who spent decades bringing food and medicine to Iraqis, was believed murdered in Baghdad after Al-Jazeera television said Tuesday it received a video showing a hooded militant shooting a blindfolded woman in the head.
Hassan's family in London said the longtime director of CARE in Iraq was likely the victim, and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said analysis of the video showed Hassan has "probably been murdered, although we cannot conclude this with complete certainty."
CARE said it was in mourning for the 59-year-old Briton, a veteran humanitarian worker known around the Mideast for her concern for Iraqis -- particularly during the years of U.N. sanctions, whose effects on children she vocally denounced.
"To kidnap and kill anyone is inexcusable," Straw said. "But it is repugnant to commit such a crime against a woman who has spent most of her life working for the good of the people of Iraq."
In an emotional appeal on Al-Jazeera, Hassan's Iraqi husband, Tahseen Ali Hassan, said he had heard of the video but did not know whether it was authentic.
"I appeal to those who took my wife [to tell me] what they did with her. ... I want my wife, dead or alive. If she is dead, please let me know of her whereabouts so I can bury her in peace," he said, his voice choked with tears.
Hassan would be the first foreign female hostage killed in Iraq's wave of kidnappings. More than 170 foreigners have been abducted this year, and at least 34 killed. One woman -- a Polish-Iraqi citizen -- remains captive.
The video shows a hooded militant firing a pistol into the head of a blindfolded woman wearing an orange jumpsuit, said Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout. The station received the tape a few days ago but had not been sure of its authenticity until recently, he said.
Deadly month
As for the growing casualty count, until now the second-deadliest month was November 2003 with 82 deaths, and 80 Americans died in May and September this year.
The rising death toll coincides with U.S. military commanders' efforts to pacify areas of Iraq that need to be brought under Iraqi government control before elections scheduled for late January. It also reflects an escalation of attacks by the insurgents, although some U.S. commanders say they believe this may be a last-gasp effort by rebel forces outmatched by U.S. firepower.
It is difficult to gauge the effect of the growing death toll on U.S. troop morale. Commanders say their men and women are holding up well, although they caution that more hard fighting lies ahead.
Most of the deaths this month have been in the Fallujah offensive that began Nov. 7. Many Marines and soldiers also have been killed in Ramadi and other cities in Anbar province west of Baghdad, as well as in Mosul in the north, Babil province south of Baghdad and in and around the Iraqi capital.
Here and there
Support troops also have been killed along supply routes. On Tuesday, a soldier assigned to the Army's 13th Corps Support Command was killed and another was wounded when a roadside bomb struck their supply convoy near Qayarrah West Airfield in northern Iraq.
A Marine officer said Monday that 37 Marines and soldiers had been killed in the Fallujah offensive, plus one nonbattle death. He said 320 had been wounded. American estimates of the number of insurgents killed in the offensive range from about 1,000 to about 1,200.
An exact and fully current count of U.S. deaths is difficult to obtain because of time lags between the military's initial reporting of attacks and the subsequent identification of the individual casualties.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of plans for U.S. Central Command, said Tuesday that enough of the insurgency's leaders probably got out of Fallujah to keep the violence flaring elsewhere.
"What we primarily captured, we suspect, are not the high-level leadership nor the facilitators but really the common foot soldiers, and we would expect that the foreign fighters that didn't fight to the death are probably moving out to start the fight somewhere else [in Iraq]," Kimmitt said in an interview with AP Radio from Central Command offices in Tampa, Fla.
Pentagon report
As of Tuesday the Pentagon said 1,210 U.S. service members have died in Iraq since the conflict began 20 months ago. At the beginning of November the Pentagon count stood at 1,119, and it rose rapidly as the Fallujah fighting intensified and insurgents struck back in other cities and towns.
Because of the heavy fighting in Fallujah and the insurgents' apparent attempts to respond with stepped-up attacks elsewhere, this month also is seeing one of the highest wounded totals. The number of wounded jumped by nearly 500 this week, according to Pentagon figures .