Military deaths total at least 20

Saturday's U.S. death toll was the third highest of any single day since the war began.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- At least 20 American service members were killed in military operations Saturday in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in two years, including 13 who died in a helicopter crash and five slain in an attack by militia fighters in the holy city of Karbala, military officials said.
Saturday's toll was the third highest of any single day since the war began in March 2003, eclipsed only by 37 U.S. deaths Jan. 26, 2005, and 28 on the third day of the U.S. invasion. U.S. authorities also announced two American combat deaths from Friday.
The heavy toll comes at a critical time of rising congressional opposition to President Bush's decision to dispatch 21,500 additional soldiers to the conflict to try to curb sectarian slaughter. The first reinforcements are already arriving in Baghdad and the surrounding areas.
The day's worst loss came from the crash of a U.S. Army helicopter northeast of Baghdad that killed 13 service members. An attack Saturday night blamed on militiamen in Karbala killed five soldiers. Roadside bombs killed another soldier in the capital and one in Nineveh province north of Baghdad.
The military gave little information on the crash of the Black Hawk during good weather in Diyala province, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have been battling Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias around the city of Baqouba for months.
Cause undetermined
Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, a U.S. spokeswoman, said the cause of the crash had not been determined. Navy Capt. Frank Pascual, a member of a U.S. media relations team in the United Arab Emirates, told Al-Arabiya television that the helicopter was believed to have suffered technical troubles before going down.
Saturday's crash was the fourth-deadliest since the start of the war. The worst crash occurred Jan 26, 2005, when a Marine transport helicopter crashed during a sandstorm in Iraq's western desert. Thirty Marines and one sailor were killed -- the largest number of American service members to die in a single incident in Iraq. On the same day, six other U.S. forces died in combat for a total of 37 deaths, the largest one-day casualty toll of the war.
The second highest daily toll was March 23, 2003, when 28 service members were killed as American forces were pushing toward Baghdad on the third day of the U.S.-led invasion.
The U.S. military said militia fighters attacked a provincial headquarters in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala, killing five American soldiers and wounding three Saturday night.
The statement said "an illegally armed militia group" attacked the building with grenades, small arms and "indirect fire," which usually means mortars or rockets. The statement said the three soldiers were wounded while repelling the attack.
"A meeting was taking place at the time of the attack to ensure the security of Shiite pilgrims participating in the Ashoura commemorations," said a statement from Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, deputy commander of the Multi-National Division-Baghdad.
What happened
Karbala is 50 miles south of Baghdad and thousands of Shiite pilgrims are flocking to the city to mark the 10-day Ashoura festival commemorating the death of one of Shiite Islam's most sacred saints, Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
Brooks said Iraqi officials and security forces as well as U.S. troops were present at the meeting, but his statement did not mention other casualties from the attack. It said the headquarters had "been secured by coalition and Iraqi security forces."
Also Saturday, the U.S. military announced that combat Friday had killed an Army soldier in Nineveh province and a Marine in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of the capital. The Marines often delay death reports, raising the possibility that Friday's toll was higher.
In south Baghdad, U.S. helicopters dropped Iraqi police commandos into the dangerous Dora neighborhood to stage a raid on the Omar Brigade, an al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group, Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.
Khalaf said 15 insurgents were killed and five captured during an intense battle at two abandoned houses taken over by Sunni gunmen, whom he blamed for a series of kidnappings and killings in a bid to cleanse the once-mixed neighborhood of Shiite residents.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials said a joint U.S.-Iraqi force searched a hospital in the volatile Sunni-dominated western neighborhood of Yarmouk.
Followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr voiced increasing anger over Friday's capture of a senior aide to the radical cleric in a raid in eastern Baghdad.
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