Two US pilots die in helicopter crash
Later yesterday, a car bomb exploded between a movie house and Sunni Arab mosque in eastern Baghdad, killing at least four people and injuring 16, authorities said.
The AH-64 crashed in Mishahda, 32 kilometres north of the capital, and was in flames on the ground, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said. Witness Mohammed Naji said he saw two helicopters flying toward Mishahda when “a rocket hit one of them and destroyed it completely in the air”.
The two pilots were killed in the crash, which is under investigation, said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, spokesperson for the 3rd Infantry Division.
Heavy gunfire was heard at the time of the crash and shots also were heard afterward, the AP reporter said.
In Baghdad, two people were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol in the northern Azamiyah neighbourhood.
The attack came hours after three suicide bombers struck a police headquarters, an army base and a hospital around Mosul on Sunday, killing 33 people in a setback to rebuilding the northern city’s police force.
The group al-Qaida in Iraq, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Iraq’s third-largest city.
The relentless carnage has killed at least 1,338 people since April 28, when Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his Shi’ite-dominated government. With the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency targeting the Shi’ite majority, the wave of killings has raised fears of a possible civil war.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it may take as long as 12 years to defeat the insurgents. He said Iraq’s security forces will have to finish the job because American and foreign troops will have left the country by then.
Rumsfeld also acknowledged that US officials have met with insurgents in Iraq, after a British newspaper reported two recent meetings took place at a villa north of Baghdad.
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