US helicopter crashes in Iraq, all 13 aboard dead

Baghdad, Jan 21: A US military helicopter crashed northeast of Baghdad today, killing all 13 military personnel on board, but the US military gave no immediate details on the cause.

It was one of the deadliest single incidents in four years of war and the bloodiest since US President George W Bush announced an increase in troop numbers that has run into stiff opposition among Democrats now controlling Congress.

The incident brought to 16 the number of US military deaths announced today.

Dozens of helicopters have crashed in Iraq over the past four years since the US-led invasion, a number shot down by insurgents.

The area northeast of Baghdad is one where fighting has been intense between US forces and guerrillas.

''A US forces helicopter went down northeast of Baghdad this afternoon. Emergency Coalition Forces responded and secured the scene. Thirteen passengers and crew members were aboard the aircraft and all were killed,'' said the statement.

It did not identify the type of helicopter. The Blackhawk helicopter widely used in Iraq carries four crew and about 10 passengers on a typical flight.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Bush on Friday of playing politics with soldiers' lives.

''The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way, that we won't cut off the resources,'' Pelosi, head of the Democratic-led House, told ABC television. ''That's why he's moving so quickly to put them in harm's way.'' Police in the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Kerbala said more than a dozen mortar rounds landed near the governor's offices as thousands gathered to begin the major, 10-day rite of Ashura.

No one appeared to have been wounded, one officer said.

Police cordoned off the area, which lies about 2 km from the main focus of the religious ceremonies.

Live television footage at the time, shortly after dark, showed the crowd undisturbed.

Although police said 14 mortar rounds were fired, a source familiar with security in Kerbala, 110 km south of Baghdad, said the cause of the blasts was unclear and may have been connected with a raid by US and Iraqi security forces on political offices.

Ashura lasts for 10 days and is the highpoint of the Shi'ite religious year. Similar rites, effectively banned under Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated secular rule, have come under attack since the US invasion from al Qaeda and other militants.

Earlier today, Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political movement accused Washington of trying to provoke a confrontation by arresting one of its key figures.

Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, a spokesman for Sadr, was among at least three people arrested by US and Iraqi troops in a midnight raid on Sadr City, a stronghold of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia in northeast Baghdad where US forces rarely venture.

Sadr's movement is a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite bloc in the government, but Maliki has been criticised by Washington and leaders of the once-dominant Sunni Arab minority for failing to disarm the Mehdi Army.

Abdul Mahdi Mtiri, a member of the Sadr movement's political committee, said Iraqi officials had promised Darraji would be released. ''We don't know how serious this promise is because so far he has not been released,'' said Mtiri.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, who said yesterday the operation had Maliki's full backing, told Iraqiya state television he did not expect Darraji to be released today.

''The matter is not in the hands of the Iraqi government. The Americans arrested him and they're investigating him and when they're finished they will release him,'' said Dabbagh.

Dealing with Sadr and the Mehdi Army is a burning issue for US forces and Maliki as they prepare what many see as a last-ditch effort to curb the sectarian violence that threatens to push Iraq toward civil war.

Sadr, a young populist cleric, enjoys a mass following in Iraq and some backing from neighbouring Shi'ite Iran.

''We know the truth behind this arrest is the Americans want to target the Sadrists and they want to draw the Sadrists into a confrontation with the American troops,'' said Mtiri.

After criticism from Washington, Maliki has announced the planned crackdown in Baghdad, backed by most of the 21,500 US reinforcements being sent by Bush, would tackle Shi'ite militias as well as Sunni insurgents.

The mayor of Sadr City, Rahim al-Darraji, said there were no armed groups in the area except for official government forces.

In a raid in southern Baghdad today, about 100 Iraqi police commandos backed by six US helicopters killed 15 suspected Sunni insurgents, Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

REUTERS

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