It was the deadliest day for American troops in the six-month-old
occupation of Iraq (news
- web
sites), and came amid threats attributed to Saddam Hussein (news
- web
sites)'s party of a wave of violence against the U.S. occupation.
There was still no sign of the rumored "Day of Resistance" allegedly
planned for Baghdad on Saturday. But at least one other American soldier
was confirmed killed Sunday in ground attacks here and elsewhere in
central Iraq.
Witnesses said they saw two missiles fired at the heavy transport
copter, the biggest U.S. target yet shot from the skies by Iraq's
insurgents. It had been ferrying soldiers to Baghdad International Airport
for flights out of the country for rest and relaxation, or R&R.
The aircraft was hit at about 9 a.m. and crashed amid cornfields near
the village of Hasi, about 40 miles southwest of Baghdad and just south of
Fallujah, a center of Sunni Muslim resistance to the U.S. occupation.
Insurgents have fired on U.S. aircraft before, downing two helicopters,
and American military officials have repeatedly warned that hundreds of
shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles remain unaccounted for in Iraq
since the collapse of Saddam's regime in April.
"The Chinook was shot down by an unknown weapon," a U.S. military
spokesman in Baghdad said on condition of anonymity. U.S. command in
Baghdad said there were 13 killed and more than 20 wounded, and that a
search was under way for possible other survivors.
The death toll surpasses the March 23 ambush of the 507th Maintenance
Company, in which 11 soldiers were killed, nine were wounded and seven
captured, including Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
The helicopter was part of a formation of two Chinooks carrying a total
of more than 50 passengers to the U.S. base at the former Saddam
International Airport, renamed Baghdad International Airport, which the
military calls BIA.
"Our initial report is that they were being transported to BIA for
R&R flights," a U.S. command spokeswoman in Baghdad said. She said at
least some were coming from Camp Ridgway, believed to be an 82nd Airborne
Division base in western Iraq.
At the scene, villager Thaer Ali, 21, said someone fired two missiles
from the area of a date palm grove about 500 yards from where the stricken
copter crashed.
Yassin Mohamed, another witness, said he ran out of his house, a
half-mile away, when he heard an explosion. "I saw the Chinook burning. I
ran toward it because I wanted to help put out the fire, but couldn't get
near because of American soldiers."
Witnesses said the second copter hovered over the downed craft for some
minutes and then set down, apparently to try to help extinguish a fire.
The downed copter was already destroyed.
At least a half-dozen Black Hawk helicopters later hovered over the
area, and dozens of soldiers swarmed over the site. Injured were still
being evacuated at least two hours later. Villagers displayed blackened
pieces of wreckage to arriving reporters.
"This was a new lesson from the resistance, a lesson to the greedy
aggressors," said one Iraqi in nearby Fallujah, who wouldn't give his
name. "They'll never be safe until they get out of our country," he said
of the Americans.
Others were celebrating word of the helicopter downing and also a fresh
attack on U.S. soldiers in Fallujah itself, where witnesses said an
explosion struck one vehicle in a U.S. Army convoy at about 9 a.m. Sunday.
They claimed four soldiers died, but U.S. military sources said they
couldn't confirm the report.
In a separate incident, the U.S. command said a soldier from the 1st
Armored Division was killed just after midnight in an explosion in
Baghdad.
In the Abu Ghraib suburb, local Iraqis said U.S. troops arrived Sunday
morning and ordered people to disperse from the marketplace and remove
what the Iraqis said were religious posters from walls. Someone then
tossed a grenade at the Americans, witnesses said, and the soldiers opened
fire.
The U.S. command said it had no immediate information, but Iraqi
witnesses said they believed three or four Americans were killed and six
to seven Iraqis were wounded.
The presence of the portable anti-aircraft missiles has represented a
significant threat for military aircraft and raised concerns over the
security of the few commercial flights in and out of Baghdad International
Airport. The U.S.-led coalition has offered rewards of $500 apiece to
Iraqis who turn the weapons in.
The Chinook was the third helicopter known to have been brought down by
Iraq's insurgents since President Bush (news
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sites) declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1.
A U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter crash-landed Oct. 25 in Tikrit after
being hit by an unknown weapon, injuring one crewmember. On June 12, a
U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter was shot down by hostile fire in the
western desert, and two crewmembers were rescued unhurt.
The Pentagon (news
- web
sites) had announced Friday it was expanding the home leave program
for troops in Iraq, to fly more soldiers out of the region each day and
take them to more U.S. airports. As of Sunday, it said, the number of
soldiers departing daily via a transit facility in neighboring Kuwait
would be increased to 480, from 280.
The workhorse, 10-ton Chinook, which has a crew of four, is the
military's most versatile heavy-lift helicopter, used primarily for troop
movements, transporting artillery and similar functions.
The downing of the Chinook came after what U.S. occupation chief L.
Paul Bremer on Saturday called "a tough week" in Iraq, beginning with an
insurgent rocket attack on Sunday against a Baghdad hotel housing hundreds
of his Coalition Provisional Authority staff members. One was killed and
15 wounded in that attack.
A day later, four coordinated suicide bombings in Baghdad killed three
dozen people and wounded more than 200, and that was followed by
widespread rumors and leaflets threatening an escalation in the anti-U.S.
resistance.
Attacks against U.S. forces had already stepped up in the previous
week, to an average of 33 a day.
