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| Iraq |
| 12 dead in US chopper crash |
| 2006-01-09 |
| A US helicopter with 12 passengers and crew members crashed in northern Iraq, killing all on board, the military command said yesterday. In addition, five Marines were reported killed in action, bringing to as many as 28 the number of American troops slain in Iraq since Thursday. The crash of the UH-60 Black Hawk military copter late Saturday was the deadliest in Iraq since a Chinook transport helicopter went down last January near the Jordanian border, killing 30 Marines and a sailor. A spokesman for US-led forces would not confirm the nationality or identity of those killed in the Black Hawk pending notification of next of kin. ''At this time we believe all the victims were US citizens," a spokesman said. The cause of the crash was under investigation, and it was not immediately known whether the aircraft came under fire from insurgents. A military spokesman noted, however, that the Black Hawk went down amid high winds and heavy rainfall. The Black Hawk helicopter was one of two on night operations Saturday and had lost radio contact with the other aircraft before crashing in a sparsely populated area about 8 miles east of Tal Afar, a city near Mosul. The military often flies missions at night, including the transport of troops via helicopter. But aviation specialists say darkness can complicate making an emergency landing, difficult in a copter under the best of circumstances. ''Helicopters are fairly unstable vehicles that need constant pilot attention," said Peter Field, a Vietnam-era Marine colonel and former director of the Navy's test pilot school in Patuxent River, Md. ''Flying over the vacant desert at night would pose a little bit more of a task for the pilot." Field, now serving as a civil aviation consultant based in St. Louis, said investigators can ascertain quickly whether a crash was caused by mechanical error or hostile fire once they reach the fuselage. ''If the aircraft were hit by a surface-to-air missile or rocket-propelled grenade, you'd be able to tell," he said. ''The crash site won't contain the whole vehicle. There will be parts that fell along the way." Nearby Tal Afar has long been a site of insurgent activity. In September, US planes bombed several houses in Tal Afar, which one military official referred to as a ''terrorist incubator," after the town's residents were urged to evacuate. Weapons caches and high-tech bomb factories were uncovered by US troops. In ground action, three of the five Marines killed over the weekend were slain by small arms fire in separate engagements with enemy gunmen yesterday in Fallujah. The US military also reported that two Marines riding in separate vehicles near Ferris and Karmah died when they were attacked by roadside bombs. On Thursday, 11 US soldiers and Marines were killed around the country amid bombings and other insurgent attacks. About 2,200 US military personnel have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. In other violence, gunfights broke out yesterday between insurgents and Iraqi police in the al-Adel neighborhood of western Baghdad, leaving one officer killed and 13 wounded. A suicide car bomb targeted the convoy of Mowaffak Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, killing two and injuring five. The official was unharmed. US and Iraqi leaders have attempted to quell the insurgency by drawing Sunni Arabs into the government. Adnan Dulaimi, a leader of the main Sunni Arab slate in last month's election, met yesterday with Jalal Talabani, interim president, and expressed willingness to bring his coalition into government ''so long as no side will dominate the government." The leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, denounced Arab countries working for political reconciliation in Iraq as US agents, according to a Web audio tape posted yesterday, Reuters reported from Dubai. ''The countries that met in Cairo . . . were involved in destroying Iraq and cooperated with America by opening their land, airspace, and waters and offering intelligence to it," said the speaker on the tape, who sounded like Zarqawi. He was referring to an Arab League conference in November that tried to reconcile Iraqi political factions. The tape, posted on an Islamist website often used by insurgent groups in Iraq, could not be authenticated. The speaker denounced the Iraqi Islamic Party, viewed as the largest Sunni Arab party, for endorsing a new constitution, a move that boosted the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government. ''We call on the Islamic Party to leave this path . . . which leads to the destruction of the Sunnis," the speaker said. ''We had the power to disrupt the elections in most parts of Iraq but did not do it in order not to harm the Sunni masses," the speaker said, referring to last month's parliamentary polls, which were mostly peaceful. Also yesterday, US-led forces raided the Umm Qura Mosque in Baghdad, headquarters of the Muslim Scholars Association, a hard-line group of clerics the US has accused of terrorist activities. The clerics held a news conference to denounce the action, during which coalition forces broke down doors and rifled through files. And under heavy security, Zalmay Khalilzad, US ambassador, yesterday visited a pediatric hospital in Baghdad whose renovation is one of 19 such projects the US government is financing in Iraq. He said the Americans are investing in children ''because they are the future of this country." ''The goal is to get Iraq on its feet, Iraqis looking after Iraqis," Khalilzad said at the hospital located in eastern Baghdad. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |