|
Chinook 'struck by missiles'
02/11/2003 13:34 - (SA)
Fallujah, Iraq - A US Chinook helicopter believed carrying dozens of soldiers to leaves abroad was struck by a missile and crashed west of Baghdad on Sunday, killing 13 soldiers and wounding more than 20 others, the US command and witnesses reported.
It was the deadliest day for American troops in the 6-month-old occupation of Iraq.
The heavy transport copter was the biggest US target yet shot from the skies by Iraq's insurgents, in a resistance campaign that has escalated in recent days. Witnesses and US officials said four to five other US soldiers were reported killed on Sunday in ground attacks here and elsewhere in central Iraq.
"Currently there are 13 killed in action and more than 20 wounded," the Baghdad command said in a statement on the Chinook shootdown. It said a search was under way at the site for other survivors.
Witnesses south of Fallujah, 65km west of the capital, said they saw two missiles fired at the helicopter, which came down amid cornfields near the village of Hasi, 8km south of Fallujah, a centre of Sunni Muslim resistance to the US occupation.
The helicopter was part of a formation of two Chinooks carrying more than 50 passengers to the US base at the former Saddam International Airport, renamed Baghdad International.
"Our initial report is that they were being transported to BIA for R&R flights," that is, rest and recreation leaves abroad, a US command spokesperson in Baghdad said. She said at least some were coming from Camp Ridgway, believed to be an 82nd Airborne Division base in western Iraq.
Someone fired two missiles from the area of a date palm grove about 500m from where the stricken copter came down, said villager Thaer Ali, 21.
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, but the downed copter was destroyed.
At least a half-dozen Black Hawk helicopters later hovered over the area, and dozens of soldiers swarmed over the site. Wounded soldiers were still being evacuated at least two hours later. Local 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.
- AP
|
News
