BAGHDAD, Iraq – The U.S. military reported the deaths of 11 troops Sunday, six in a single bombing, as a general warned that American casualties are expected to increase in the months ahead, in tandem with the surge of U.S. forces dispatched to Iraq to support President Bush’s strategy to secure Baghdad.

The U.S. deaths came amid a fresh surge of violence across Iraq in which at least 95 Iraqis were reported killed in bombings and shootings, including 30 in a car bombing at a market in the southwestern Baghdad neighborhood of Bayaa.

Maj. Gen Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division whose troops are among those arriving in Iraq to support the surge, predicted growing U.S. casualties as the troops take on intensified combat operations.

“We’re taking the fight to him (the enemy) and as a result of that there’s going to be additional casualties,” he said at a briefing with Western reporters in Baghdad. “All of us believe that in the next 90 days we’re going to see an increase in casualties.”

Further complicating the battle ahead, he said, is evidence uncovered in the area under his command, south of Baghdad, that Sunni insurgents possess the sophisticated bomb-making devices known as explosively formed penetrators that the U.S. believes are being supplied by Iran.

“We’re seeing Iranian EFPs in the hands of Sunni extremists,” he said, offering a further indication that Iran may be supporting both sides in Iraq’s sectarian conflict. “Iranian influence is evident both with Shiite extremists and with Sunni extremists.”

EFPs are a particularly lethal form of roadside bomb that typically kill or injure a higher proportion of soldiers than the other improvised explosive devices that have long been responsible for the majority of U.S. casualties.

Of the 13 soldiers under his command killed since he deployed to Iraq on April 1, more than half were killed by EFPs, Lynch said.

With four of the five extra combat brigades scheduled for deployment in Iraq, the upturn in casualties is already becoming evident. April was the bloodiest month of the year for U.S. forces, with 104 deaths reported. Sunday’s deaths brought to 22 the number killed in the first six days of May, 17 of them in roadside bombings.

Of the latest American casualties reported, eight died Sunday, including six in a roadside bombing against their vehicle in troubled Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. An unnamed journalist also died and two soldiers were wounded in the attack, the worst since nine Americans died in an April 23 bombing also in Diyala, which has seen a sharp escalation of violence as U.S. forces attempt to wrest control of the area back from al-Qaida-affiliated insurgents.

Two other soldiers died in two separate bombings in Baghdad, one of them in northern Baghdad that was attributed to an EFP and another in southern Baghdad. In addition, a soldier died Saturday in a roadside bombing in western Baghdad and two Marines died Friday in combat operations in western Anbar province, the military reported Sunday.

U.S. officials attribute some of the recent increase in casualties to the heightened presence of forces on the streets of Baghdad, where an 11-week-old security plan to wrest back control of the capital from militias and insurgents is under way.

Under the plan, American troops are taking up positions in combat outposts in neighborhoods, putting them at greater exposure to attacks than in their fortified bases.

The weeks ahead will also witness intensified combat activity as troops try to root out insurgents, said Lynch, who commands Task Force Marne in the provinces of Babil, Najaf, Kerbala and Wasit south of Baghdad.

The fifth and last of the extra brigades is expected to arrive by June 1, and it is slated to deploy in Wasit province, an area bordering Iran that had been under Polish control and has so far seen no U.S. military presence, Lynch said.

There, Lynch said, the military effort will focus on controlling the Iranian border in an area known as a stronghold for Shiite militias. “It’s going to be war,” he said. “It’s going to be a fight. There’s going to be casualties.”

Most of the EFPs discovered by U.S. forces are in the possession of Shiite militias, but troops have also found EFPs and other Iranian munitions in areas under Sunni extremist control, Lynch said.