Baghdad, Iraq ? The war in Iraq passed a sobering milepost Tuesday when U.S. officials reported nine more Americans were killed – five of them members of the armed forces, raising to more than 1,900 the number of U.S. service members who have died in the country since the invasion.

A Diplomatic Security agent attached to the U.S. State Department and three private American security guards were killed when their convoy was hit by a suicide car bomber Monday in the northern city of Mosul, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said. The four were attached to the U.S. Embassy’s regional office in Mosul.

The announcements came as British and Iraqi officials issued stinging charges and countercharges about the storming of a Basra jail to free two British soldiers who had been arrested by Basra police. During the raid, British forces learned that Shiite Muslim militiamen and police had just moved the two men to a nearby house. The British then stormed that house and rescued the men.

British Defense Minister John Reid said his forces in the southern city were “absolutely right” to act. But a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said the operation was “very unfortunate.”

The latest American deaths, which raised the overall toll to 1,904, included a soldier from the 18th Military Police Brigade killed in a roadside bombing 75 miles north of the capital Tuesday, the military said.

Four soldiers attached to the Marines died Monday in two roadside bombings near the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad. They were attached to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.

Before the five military deaths were announced Tuesday, a Pentagon count said 1,479 U.S. service members had died in hostile action in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003. The toll includes five military civilians and excludes American service members who died from other causes.

Iraqi police walk through debris at the central jail Tuesday in Basra, Iraq. British armored vehicles broke down the walls of the central jail in this southern city and freed two British soldiers, allegedly undercover commandos arrested for shooting two Iraqi policemen, witnesses said.

Names of the victims were not released in Baghdad, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a statement issued in New York, identified the Diplomatic Security officer as Stephen Eric Sullivan. His age and address were not given.

While about 135,000 U.S. troops operate throughout Iraq, the 8,500 British forces are headquartered in the Basra region, in the country’s far south.

A day after British armored vehicles stormed the jail in Basra to free two commandos, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a Shiite who serves as Iraq’s national security adviser, said the operation was “a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.”

British forces used armor to bash their way into the jail compound late Monday after a day of turmoil that erupted with the arrest of the two commandos. At first Basra police said the men shot and killed a policeman, but on Tuesday the al-Jaafari spokesman, Haydar al-Abadi, said the men – who were wearing civilian clothes – were grabbed for behaving suspiciously and collecting information.

The British said the men had been handed over to a militia. The Basra governor confirmed the claim, saying the Britons were in the custody of the al-Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

“The two British were being kept in a house controlled by militiamen when the rescue operation took place,” said the governor, Mohammed al-Waili.

“Police who are members of the militia group took them to a nearby house after jail authorities learned the facility was about to be stormed,” he said, demanding that the Britons be handed over to local authorities for trial. He would not say what charges they might face.