Civilian Plane May Have Crashed in Iraq
"Iraq"01/23/2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The U.S. military in Baghdad said Tuesday it was investigating what appeared to be the crash of a civilian aircraft after reports a helicopter was shot down over a volatile Sunni area in the capital.
The military said it had no evidence any U.S. forces aircraft were involved but was investigating "what appears to be a crashed civilian aircraft."
Most aircraft used in Iraq belong to the coalition forces, but at least one private U.S. security company flies small helicopters above VIP convoys in Baghdad.
"We are in the process of determining the facts and checking on the welfare and status of those involved," U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor told The Associated Press, confirming the investigation.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way, said there was no indication any U.S. Embassy staff or diplomats were on the aircraft.
The military statement followed a report on a television station run by the hard-line Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party that a U.S. helicopter was shot down during clashes in the al-Fadhl district in eastern Baghdad, about a half-mile from Al-Mustansiriya University.
The university was struck by twin car bombs last week in an attack that killed 70 people, most of them students getting ready to board buses to go home after classes.
It also came after a senior U.S. military official said Monday that there was evidence that an Army helicopter that crashed northeast of Baghdad over the weekend may have been shot down.
Searchers at the scene found a tube that could be part of a shoulder-fired weapon that may have been used to shoot down the aircraft, said the official, who requested anonymity because the investigation was still continuing.
Col. David Sutherland, commander of U.S. forces in the Iraqi province of Diyala, has said the crash is still under investigation.
The Black Hawk went down northeast of Baghdad on Saturday, a day when 25 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq - 12 of them in the crash. That made it the third-deadliest day since the war started in March 2003 - surpassed only by the one-day toll of 37 U.S. fatalities on Jan. 26, 2005, and 28 on the third day of the U.S. invasion.
An al-Qaida-linked coalition of Iraqi Sunni insurgents claimed Monday that its fighters shot down the helicopter.
Meanwhile, five people were killed when two bombs struck separate Shiite targets in Baghdad on Tuesday, a day after a double car bombing tore through the stalls of a market crowded with Shiites elsewhere in the capital leaving 88 dead - the bloodiest attack in two months.
The military announced the deaths of two more U.S. troops, including a Marine who died Sunday from fighting south of Baghdad, raising the weekend death toll to 28 as American casualties mount ahead of a U.S.-Iraqi security push to try and secure Baghdad.
An American soldier also was killed Monday in the volatile Anbar province west of the capital, the military said.
The first blast Tuesday occurred when a parked car bomb exploded at 9 a.m. near the Finance Ministry, which is run by Bayan Jabr, a Shiite and former interior minister. One civilian was killed and four other people were wounded, including a ministry guard, police said.
A bomb planted under a car exploded about 45 minutes later in the predominantly Shiite commercial district of Karradah in downtown Baghdad, killing four people, including a woman and a 7-year-old boy, and wounding seven other people, police said.
The blast collapsed part of the wall of a brick building, leaving a ground floor apartment exposed and a mass of rubble and mangled cars in the alley.
"Why are the insurgents detonating bombs near our houses every day? Everyday we have a blast, what have we done wrong? May Allah curse everybody who hurts the people," an unidentified elderly woman shrouded in black said as she stood amid the wreckage.
The attacks have battered Shiites during one of their holiest festivals and were the latest in a renewed campaign of Sunni insurgent violence before a U.S.-Iraqi push to secure Baghdad. The first of the 21,000 extra U.S. troops being sent to help quell the violence have started to arrive in Baghdad.