An estimated 13,000 Iraqis, including as many as 4,300 non-combatants, were killed during the major combat phase of the war in Iraq, a research group found in a study.

The Project on Defense Alternatives said its estimate was based on a review of US combat data, battlefield press reports, and Iraqi hospital surveys. The study covered the period from March 19 to the end of April.

The Pentagon has refrained from making estimates of Iraqi dead in either the 1991 Gulf War or the latest conflict.

The study, authored by Carl Coneta, found that deaths of Iraqi civilians who did not take up arms in the fighting was as high or higher than in the 1991 Gulf War despite advances in precision weaponry.

"On the Iraqi side, a review and analysis of the available evidence shows that approximately 11,000 to 15,000 Iraqis, combatants and non-combatants, were killed in the course of major combat operations," the study said.

"Of the total number of Iraqi fatalities during the relevant period, approximately 30 percent (or between 3,200 and 4,300) were non-combatant civilians -- that is civilians who did not take up arms," the report said.

The study estimated the Iraqi dead during the 1991 Gulf War casualties at some 3,500 Iraqi civilians and between 20,000 and 26,000 military personnel.

It attributed the higher civilian death toll in 2003 to the fact that US forces invaded Iraq to change the regime.

The Project on Defense Alternatives is a think tank based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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