http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/24/iraq.main/?iref=mpstoryview

(CNN) -- The death of an Air Force technical sergeant in Iraq last
week quietly ushered in a somber milestone: 100 American female
service members now have died in Iraq, according to a CNN count of
Pentagon figures.

The latest death was Tech. Sgt. Jackie L. Larsen, 37, of Tacoma,
Washington, who died of natural causes July 17 at Balad Air Base,
Iraq. She was assigned to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, Beale Air Force
Base, California, according to the Pentagon.

The death comes during what is on pace to be the lowest monthly toll
in the war. Pentagon records show that at least nine U.S. troops have
died in July. The lowest number in the war was in May, with 19. The
total of U.S. service member deaths in the Iraq war now stands at
4,124.

Of the 100 female service members who died:

# 97 were troops and three were military civilian employees.

# 61 of them have been classified as hostile -- occurring during
combat or enemy attacks -- and 39 have been non-hostile.

# 12 died in 2003, 19 in 2004, 20 in 2005, 15 in 2006, 27 in 2007, and
seven this year so far.

# 80 of those were members of the Army, nine were Navy, seven were
Marines, and four were Air Force.

Meanwhile, a female suicide bomber detonated explosives at an
Awakening Council checkpoint just outside of Baquba, killing eight
people and wounding 24 Thursday night, Baquba police said.

The checkpoint is two kilometers (1.4 miles) from Baquba, the capital
of Diyala province.

Those killed and wounded were mostly members of an anti-al Qaeda
group, the police said.

There have been about two dozen female suicide bombings in Iraq. The
bulk of them have been in Diyala -- an ethnically mixed province.

Elsewhere, attackers in Iraq's capital over the last 24 hours killed
three members of an anti-insurgent group and wounded a senior member
of the prime minister's political party, officials told CNN.

Three members of an Awakening Council who were manning checkpoints in
the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya were gunned down by attackers in a
car on Thursday morning, according to a local leader of the Awakening
Council -- one of the predominantly anti-al Qaeda Sunni groups backed
by the United States.

Adhamiya -- in Baghdad's northeastern area -- used to be controlled by
al Qaeda in Iraq fighters and the area had once been rife with attacks
against U.S. and Iraqi targets. But as the Awakening movement took
hold in the neighborhood over the last year, violence declined.

An Interior Ministry official said Abdul Rahman Dawood, a senior
member of the Dawa party, was wounded in a bombing at his house in
southeastern Baghdad late Wednesday. Dawa, a Shiite movement that is
part of the United Iraqi Alliance bloc, is the party of Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki.

The prime minister is in Europe this week. He traveled to Germany,
where he met with Chancellor Angela Merkel, and is to meet with
leaders in Italy and the Vatican.

In another development, Turkish warplanes late Wednesday bombed three
villages in northern Iraq where Kurdish rebels were thought to be
based, a border security officer told CNN on Thursday.

The strikes -- the latest by the Turkish military against Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) militants -- occurred in the Zab region of Duhuk
province in Iraq's Kurdish region.

The officer said the bombing lasted for an hour and there were no
reports of casualties. Duhuk is one of three provinces that make up
the Kurdish region in Iraq.

Turkey has been fighting PKK separatists for years in the southeastern
part of Turkey.

Turkey has been going after PKK bases just over its border with
northern Iraq, where the group has been staging cross-border attacks.

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As of the day this message is being posted there are,
lacking an unexpected alternate outcome, 179 days
remaining in the imperial presidency of George W. Bush