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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JakeStraw who wrote (488836)	11/7/2003 9:01:24 AM
From: jackhach	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Friday, November 7, 2003 Posted: 8:48 AM EST (1348 GMT) Six killed in U.S. helicopter crash near Tikrit Ambushes in Mosul area kill 2 soldiers, wound 8 BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- All six soldiers aboard a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter were killed Friday when the aircraft crashed near Saddam Hussein's ancestral homeland of Tikrit, according to a U.S. military spokeswoman. "We can confirm all six onboard are dead," Army spokeswoman Maj. Josslyn Aberle said. Some of the fatalities include soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, Aberle said. The Black Hawk went down about 9:20 a.m. (1:20 a.m. EST). Traveling with the copter, a second Black Hawk did not notice any hostile fire beforehand, Aberle said. But local Iraqis blamed the crash on ground fire, a senior U.S. military official told CNN. The cause of the crash remains under investigation. The helicopter was engulfed in flames after it crashed, according to reports from the second aircraft. The Black Hawks were en route to Camp Ironhorse, the main U.S. military base in Tikrit. The town is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north-northwest of Baghdad. The crash comes a day after a somber memorial service for 15 U.S. service members killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter went down Sunday in Fallujah in an apparent missile strike. A 16th soldier died Thursday of injuries suffered in the attack, the Pentagon said. A Defense Department statement said the soldier, Sgt. Paul F. Fisher, 39, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, died at a hospital in Germany. If confirmed as a hostile attack, Friday's incident in Tikrit would be the third U.S. helicopter downed in the two weeks. On October 25, rocket-propelled grenades attacked a Black Hawk helicopter near Tikrit, hours after Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz visited the area. One soldier was wounded. In further violence Friday, assailants ambushed a U.S. military convoy in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding six, according to the Coalition Press Information Center and 101st Airborne Division. The 101st convoy was hit by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire about 7 a.m. (11 p.m. Thursday EST) in the eastern part of Mosul, a 101st spokesman said. The ambush was the second fatal attack on U.S. forces in the area in less than a day. Coalition officials reported Friday that an explosive device hit a U.S. military convoy Thursday near Mosul, killing one soldier and wounding two others. The soldier who died also was attached to the 101st Airborne Division. An improvised explosive device hit the convoy shortly before 11 a.m. (3 a.m. EST) as it traveled on a highway east of the city, according to a coalition statement. Since the war began in March, 394 U.S. troops have died. Of those, 255 have died after President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1. There is no reliable source for Iraqi civilian or combatant casualty figures, either during the period of major combat or after May 1. The Associated Press reported an estimated 3,240 civilian Iraqi deaths between March 20 and April 20, but the AP said that the figure was based on records of only half of Iraq's hospitals and the actual number was thought to be significantly higher.