U.S. Helicopter Shot Down

[Red Hawk]

A U.S. Chinook helicopter believed carrying dozens of soldiers to their leaves abroad was struck by a missile and crashed amid corn fields west of Baghdad on Sunday, witnesses and U.S. officials said. At least two soldiers were killed and 20 injured, a coalition official said.

Meanwhile, other American soldiers were reported killed in ground attacks here and elsewhere in central Iraq, as insurgents pressed a campaign that has stepped up in recent days _ a " tough week," in the words of the U.S. occupation chief.

In Abu Ghraib, on Baghdad' s western edge, U.S. troops clashed with townspeople Sunday for the second time in three days, and witnesses reported casualties among both the Americans and Iraqis. There was no immediate official confirmation.

Witnesses south of Fallujah, 40 miles west of the capital, said they saw two missiles fired at the helicopter, which came down near the village of Hasi, six miles to the south. Fallujah is a center of Sunni Muslim resistance to the U.S. occupation.

" The Chinook was shot down by an unknown weapon," a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said on condition of anonymity.

A coalition official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two people were killed and possibly more. The U.S. military confirmed one dead and about 20 injured but said updated figures would be released soon.

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 Hussein' s regime in April. Insurgents have fired on U.S. aircraft before, but this was the first known shootdown involving the Baghdad airport.

It was the third helicopter known to have been brought down across Iraq since President Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1.

The helicopter was part of a formation of two Chinooks carrying more than 50 passengers to the U.S. 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 U.S. command spokeswoman in Baghdad said. She said at least some were coming from Camp Ridgeway, believed to be an 82nd Airborne Division base in western Iraq.

Witnesses said the second copter hovered over the down 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. Injured were still being evacuated at least two hours later.

Local villagers displayed blackened pieces of wreckage to arriving reporters, and in nearby Fallujah townspeople celebrated on the streets. " This was a new lesson from the resistance, a lesson to the greedy aggressors," said one Iraqi, who wouldn' t give his name. " They' ll never be safe until they get out of our country," he said of the Americans.

Townspeople also reported a fresh attack on U.S. soldiers inside Fallujah, saying an explosion struck one vehicle in a 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, military sour ces said a soldier from the 1st Armored Division was killed just after midnight in an explosion in Baghdad.

In Abu Ghraib, 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 stickers 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 them in.

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 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 shootdown 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.

[James B]

A tough day indeed. At our house our prayers go out to thier families and loved ones. I have a hunch someone will pay for this.

[CalHunter]

My prayers for the service members and their families. I, too, hope somebody is made to pay for this cowardly attack.

[burniegoeasily]

The dancing in the streets made me sick. What made me even more sick is
the medias constant focus on the dancing in the few small villages and not on
the over all picture. We see this dancing and celebrating and equate it to a
quagmire developing in Iraq. I ask, Where are the cameras in the villages
who are morning the loss?

[model722]

Burniegoeasily well said, I could get over those b******s dancing, then I ask the same thing you just said, why did the media cover that crap. Just what our troops need is more anti-military bull. Those guy/girls have it tough enough without the media making it worse.

[Mike from Texas]

How much longer are we gonna put up with this crap?! I certainly don' t have all of the solutions, but it doesn' t look like we' re doing anything about all these cowardly attacks on our guys. It' s really pi$$ing me off. [:@]

[Jorgy]

I' m sure many of you are going to take this the wrong way, but I really hate when us americans keep calling things like this " cowardly" . While I don' t agree with just about anything going on in the middle east, i would hardly say that the taliban or whoever is doing this is cowardly. From thier viewpoint they are trying to rid thier country of the USA. If my country was invaded and occupied by an enemy force, I would use the same tactics. Any other type of tactics they would use would just be a straight out suicide.

Like I said, I don' t agree with it, but I understand it