Rebels show mutilated body

2006-04-05 12:05

Paris - An al-Qaeda-led coalition of rebel groups in Iraq posted a video on the internet on Wednesday purporting to show the mutilated body of one of two pilots of a US helicopter it claimed to have downed southwest of Baghdad.

The footage shows a burning body being dragged by fighters of the Mujahedeen Consultative Council to cries of "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest), while purported debris from the United States helicopter downed in the Yussifiyah area on April 1 was shown scattered and in flames.

The mutilation of the bodies of four US military personnel in the Sunni Muslim rebel bastion of Fallujah in April 2004 triggered unprecedented US retaliation against the town. Two of the bodies had been suspended from a bridge.

The US military said on Monday it had recovered the bodies of the two pilots of the helicopter that crashed during a combat patrol two days earlier southwest of the Iraqi capital.

"The soldiers' remains were recovered following aircraft recovery operations at the crash site of their AH-64D Apache Longbow, which went down due to possible hostile fire," the military said.

An Iraqi insurgent group calling itself the Al-Rashideen Army initially claimed to have downed the helicopter in an internet statement on Saturday.

The next day, however, the group said the "blessed operation in Yussifiyah has been claimed by our brothers" in the Mujahedeen Consultative Council and that its own militants had shot down another US helicopter on March 19 in the al-Tarmiyah region.

The Mujahedeen Consultative Council groups eight Sunni armed factions dominated by al-Qaeda's Iraq branch.

- AFP