US chopper crash kills 13 troops in Iraq
BAGHDAD (updated on: January 20, 2007, 23:38 PST): A US military helicopter crashed on Saturday near Baghdad, killing 13 personnel, in one of the worst such incidents since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The tragedy occurred as supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr vowed to secure the release of one of his close aides from US detention, a day after his capture.
"A military helicopter went down in the afternoon today north-east of Baghdad with 13 troops on board," including four crew and nine passengers, Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn L. Aberle said.
A separate statement confirmed that all board were killed, and that an investigation had begun.
The fatalities brought the total number of US dead inside Iraq since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime to 3,039, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
The last fatal helicopter crash in Iraq was on December 3 when a Sea Knight helicopter went down by Qadisiyah lake in western Sunni Anbar province, killing four of the 16 people on board.
The worst US helicopter crash was on November 15, 2003 when two UH-60 Blackhawks crashed west of Mosul in northern Iraq, killing 17 soldiers.
Two weeks earlier 16 US soldiers died when their CH-47 Chinook was shot down by a ground-to-air missile near Fallujah in Anbar province.
Earlier on Saturday the military announced the deaths of three other soldiers in different attacks across Iraq.
The rising US casualties came after US President George W. Bush announced plans to deploy 21,500 additional troops in Iraq in a bid to stabilise Baghdad, which is currently engulfed in a bitter sectarian strife.
The bulk of US casualties 44 percent have come from roadside bombs, with Anbar province emerging as the deadliest region on the back of its raging anti-US insurgency.
Most of the new troops headed for Iraq will be stationed in Baghdad with a mission to take on militias accused of leading a sectarian conflict that left thousands of Iraqis dead last year.
On Friday, in what is seen as a major move to take on the Mehdi Army, the militia loyal to Sadr the radical cleric, US and Iraqi forces arrested one of cleric's top aides based in Baghdad.
Sheikh Abdul Hadi al-Darraji, a spokesman for the Sadr movement, was picked up along with four others in a pre-dawn raid on a religious site in which one person was killed.
On Saturday, Darraji's supporters vowed to secure his release.
"The arrest of Hadi al-Darraji was a great error that we will not allow to pass," Sheikh Hassan al-Zarqani, another top Sadr aide, told AFP from the Syrian capital Damascus.
However, he said the group will not use violent methods to achieve their purpose, explaining: "We will approach the media and use diplomatic and political means to obtain his release and not take to streets."
According to the US military, which did not identify Darraji by name, its detainee was "the leader of an illegal armed group punishment committee, involved in organised kidnapping, torture and murder of Iraqi civilians."
In another development, Iraq was deploying 8,000 policemen and security guards in and around the shrine city of Karbala for the Shiite mourning ceremony of Ashura, a frequent target of Sunni insurgent attacks.
Karbala governor Akil al-Khuzai said nearly three million pilgrims were expected to flock to the city for the ceremony, the holiest on the calendar, which begins on Sunday and culminates on January 30.
brecorder.com
