Bulgaria contributes a 430-strong infantry contingent to the US-led coalition in Iraq and is deployed within the Polish-led multinational commandment in the south-centre part of the country

The killing of Private Gurdi Hristov Gurdev on March 4, 2005, records the eighth military casualty of Bulgaria since it launched Iraqi mission in August 2003.

Bulgaria suffered first and worse loss of soldiers on December 27, 2003, when five Bulgarian troops were killed in a deadly car bomb attack against the India base in Kerbala.

On the eve of Easter last year, April 23, Senior Sergeant Dimitar Dimitrov was seriously wounded in the head during a gunshot in Kerbala and later died. Six months later a Bulgarian patrol was ambushed by a car bomb while returning from Hilla to Kerbala, one Bulgarian soldier was killed and another three were injured in the attack.

Besides the military death toll, two Bulgarian civilians were also killed in Iraq. A truck driver of SOMAT haulier company fell first civilian casualty of the Balkan country in April 2004. Mario Manchev died when his convoy of trucks was attacked by unknown assailants.

Truck drivers Ivaylo Kepov and Georgi Lazov were kidnapped in July 2004 by radical insurgents pertaining to terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Their beheaded bodies were found two weeks later in the Tigris river.