Report claims 25,000 Iraqis killed since Allied invasion began two years ago

ALMOST 25,000 Iraqi civilians were killed violently in the two years after United States-led troops went into the country, with more than a third of the deaths caused by Allied forces, according to a report released yesterday.

The total compiled by Iraq Body Count and the Oxford Research Group is significantly lower than the estimated 98,000 figure in a controversial study in the medical journal The Lancet last autumn.

But it still amounts to 34 Iraqis dead for every single day since the invasion began, and one in 1,000 of Iraq's 25 million population.

Yesterday's report will spark further controversy as it suggests US-led troops are responsible for more civilian deaths than the anti-occupation forces of the insurgency.

But it stresses that the vast majority of civilian deaths caused by US and British military forces occurred during the six weeks between the outbreak of war in March 2003 and President George W Bush's declaration of an end to "major combat operations" in May.

By comparison, deaths attributable to the insurgents have increased as the occupation has continued.

The report, covering the two years to March 2005, comes after a bloody few days which have seen at least 150 killed by suicide bombs in Iraq.

It suggests that almost a third of the 24,865 civilian deaths resulting from the war and occupation occurred during the invasion of Iraq a total of 7,088 people, of whom 6,882 died as a result of Allied military action.

Post-invasion, almost twice as many civilians died in the second year of the occupation (11,351) as the first (6,215), as the insurgency gathered pace and the US military carried out offensives against militant strongholds such as Fallujah.