Helicopter crash kills US soldier among Iraqi violence

A US military helicopter crashed west of Baghdad today, killing one soldier, and gunmen shot dead a Kurd as ethnic tension gripped the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

Elsewhere in Iraq, a dean at Mosul University was assassinated, apparently because he was a minor official in the Baath Party of ousted leader Saddam Hussein, and an oil tanker in a US convoy was set ablaze in an attack by anti-American insurgents.