and iraq, after three years...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Police found at least 72 bodies killed by gunfire in Baghdad in the past 24 hours -- a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian reprisal attacks in some of the capital's most dangerous neighborhoods, officials said Tuesday.

The bloodshed -- the second wave of mass killings in Iraq since bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month -- followed weekend attacks in a teeming Shiite slum in which 58 people died and more than 200 were wounded.

The American deaths brought the number of U.S. military members killed to at least 2,308 since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.