Washington, Mar 24: Even as US claims "excellent progress" in its war against Iraq, the unexpectedly large number of American and British casualties have shocked the coalition forces, media reports said today. "The first days of the war in Iraq were so smooth. Americans might have been forgiven for imagining that the conflict would be clean and relatively free of casualties on the coalition side", the 'New York Times' noted in an editorial. Referring to the 19 deaths on the coalition side in chopper crashes, it said "such losses had not been expected". The 'Washington Post' in its editorial said "the losses were painful for American and British service men and women, the costliest in combat for the American military since Somalia in 1993 or maybe even since the Persian Gulf war". "The hopes of a quick regime collapse have dissipated as some Iraqi forces have fought back. The regime has also recovered from its early disarray to reprise some of its Gulf war propaganda tactics," the paper opined.

US and British soldiers were reported captured and dozens killed in fierce fighting tank and gun battles in southern Iraq. On Saturday, a US soldier at a base in Kuwait, a recent convert to Islam said to have "disciplinary" problems, killed a colleague and wounded 12 others by lobbing hand grenades into their tents.

Two British airmen were missing after their Tornado bomber was shot down unintentionally by a US Patriot missile near the Kuwaiti border with Iraq.

The 'Post' described the state of US prisoners of wars as "sobering" and said: "The images beamed around the world of US soldiers in stunned captivity or dead in a makeshift morgue in southern Iraq cast some doubt on the assumptions underpinning the American approach.

Bureau Report