Richard Tafoya
Feb 7th, 2007, 04:59 PM
LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-ex-iraq7feb08,0,2489532.story?coll=la-home-headlines
A U.S. military helicopter flying over farmland northwest of Baghdad crashed today, military officials said, killing all seven people on board. It was the fifth U.S. helicopter lost in the past three weeks and the second to crash in five days.
Witnesses described hearing loud bangs before the aircraft began swinging wildly in the sky and then plunged in flames.
Military officials in Baghdad said they did not know the cause of the crash. In Washington, a senior Defense Department official told the Associated Press that the military believed mechanical problems were to blame.
In Baghdad, military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle confirmed that all on board the aircraft were killed.
Hours after the crash, a Sunni Muslim insurgent group linked to Al Qaeda claimed to have shot down the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter as part of a new anti-U.S. campaign that appears to have picked up steam just as U.S. and Iraqi forces begin to launch a new security plan in Baghdad.
The same group claimed to have shot down a U.S. helicopter north of Baghdad Friday and to have set off a string of car bombs that wreaked havoc in the northern city of Kirkuk the next day.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-ex-iraq7feb08,0,2489532.story?coll=la-home-headlines
A U.S. military helicopter flying over farmland northwest of Baghdad crashed today, military officials said, killing all seven people on board. It was the fifth U.S. helicopter lost in the past three weeks and the second to crash in five days.
Witnesses described hearing loud bangs before the aircraft began swinging wildly in the sky and then plunged in flames.
Military officials in Baghdad said they did not know the cause of the crash. In Washington, a senior Defense Department official told the Associated Press that the military believed mechanical problems were to blame.
In Baghdad, military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle confirmed that all on board the aircraft were killed.
Hours after the crash, a Sunni Muslim insurgent group linked to Al Qaeda claimed to have shot down the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter as part of a new anti-U.S. campaign that appears to have picked up steam just as U.S. and Iraqi forces begin to launch a new security plan in Baghdad.
The same group claimed to have shot down a U.S. helicopter north of Baghdad Friday and to have set off a string of car bombs that wreaked havoc in the northern city of Kirkuk the next day.