Body of US warplane pilot missing in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Nov 28 (Reuters) US forces hunted for the body of an F-16 pilot who was killed yesterday when his warplane came down in a Sunni insurgent stronghold northwest of Baghdad.

The body of the pilot, who has not yet been identified, disappeared from the crash site before an American armoured column arrived on the scene and sealed off the area.

Film taken by a local journalist shortly after the crash showed the bloodied and clearly dead body of what appeared to be a man in a flight suit wearing a parachute harness lying in a field strewn with the wreckage of the plane.

But the military said a rescue team did not find the body: ''The pilot was not there when our forces arrived. At this time we do not have him,'' US Air Force Captain Nathan Broshear told Reuters, adding that he could not confirm the pilot was dead., The US Air Force said in a statement that fighter aircraft had spotted insurgents in the area of the crash site immediately after the warplane came down about 30 km (20 miles) northwest of Baghdad in the volatile Falluja area, where the anti-American Sunni insurgency is strong.

''The single-seat jet was in direct support of extensive Coalition ground combat operations when it crashed in an uninhabited field,'' it said.

An interim safety investigation board has been convened to determine the cause of the crash and DNA samples collected from the crash site.

The local journalist who shot film of the crash site said he saw no insurgents in the 15 minutes he was there, only curious residents who came to inspect the wreckage.

US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad there was ''no indication suggesting the plane was shot down''.

Two Iraqi militant groups claimed to have downed a US F16 in retaliation for what they said was the US army's killing of tens of Iraqis, Al Jazeera television said on Tuesday.

The television said it was quoting a joint statement from the Mujahideen Army and the Mujahideen Shura Council, in which they claimed the attack.

While helicopter crashes in Iraq are not uncommon, it is rare for a fixed-wing aircraft to come down.

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