BAGHDAD, Iraq — American troops are stepping up operations in the Baghdad area to combat death squads and dampen down the violence threatening the new unity government, a U.S. general said Monday.

Two more U.S. soldiers were killed Monday, the military said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted 19 operations last week targeting death squads, U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters. All but two were in Baghdad, he said.

"Clearly Baghdad is the center that everybody is fighting for," Caldwell said. "We will do whatever it takes to bring security to Baghdad."

Security in the Iraqi capital is expected to figure prominently in talks today in Washington between President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Many of the death squads are believed to be associated with either Sunni or Shiite armed groups, targeting members of the rival sect as part of a struggle for power between the country's two major religious communities.

The killings accelerated after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra and have steadily increased despite establishment of al-Maliki's national unity government last May.

On Monday, the city morgue in Kut, a mostly Shiite city southeast of Baghdad, reported receiving 19 bodies — blindfolded and some showing signs of torture. They were believed to be victims of sectarian death squads, city officials said.

U.S. officials have avoided identifying death squads and militias by sect, preferring instead to refer to them as criminals and thugs.

"We have not seen the death squads associated with any one particular sect," Caldwell said. "And they're not part of a larger organization that we can see."