IRAQ Chopper shot down, pilots killed

Since the Dec. 15 elections, more than 50 U.S. troops have been killed.
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents apparently shot down a U.S. Army reconnaissance helicopter in this northern city Friday, killing its two pilots, in the second fatal helicopter crash in Iraq in less than a week.
One witness said he heard machine-gun fire before the helicopter crashed, and children told soldiers that the sound of gunfire came from three or four directions and that the helicopter was flying erratically, possibly trying to evade it.
The helicopter looked like it crashed on a muddy plateau and then cartwheeled down a 25-foot embankment that was sloped at about a 45-degree angle. It came to rest near strewn garbage. The helicopter's two pilots -- the only people aboard -- were killed.
The pilot may have tried to land it in the dirt clearing, about 20 feet from some mud huts with clothes hanging along lines.
The crash came as Lt. Gen. John Vines, chief of the Multi-National Corps Iraq, predicted increased attacks around Iraq when final election results are released next week. At least 500 people and more than 50 U.S. troops have been killed since the Dec. 15 elections.
Vines, the second-highest-ranking general in Iraq, said from Baghdad's Camp Victory that there were indications the OH-58 Kiowa was shot down. "The indicators are that it was due to hostile fire," he said.
The armed helicopter was on a combat air patrol just outside Forward Operating Base Courage when it went down in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, the military said.
The crash deaths bring to at least 2,214 U.S. service members killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Eyewitness report
Layth Shems al-Din said he was working in his butcher shop when he heard shots that he recognized from his service in the Iraqi army as coming from a heavy machine gun.
"At the same time, there was a helicopter hovering at a low level, and after that I heard a strange sound from the helicopter, and then I heard the sound of a crash but not an explosion," the 29-year-old told an Associated Press reporter by telephone.
He and Ayad Abdul Razzaq, a 35-year-old manager of a tourist agency, said the crash occurred as the helicopters flew over Mosul's al-Sukar neighborhood. They said the aircraft went down near the al-Sayegh mosque.
Razzaq said that after hearing the "strange sound, smoke came from the helicopter before it fell."
Maj. Richard Greene, executive officer of the 172nd Stryker Brigade's 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, said the helicopter "was responding to small arms fire being taken by Iraqi police."
Greene said the gunmen were not found.
In Baqouba, a car bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing two officers and wounding six people, said Ahmed Hassan of the morgue in the city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
The U.S. military has predicted more violence for Iraq in the weeks ahead as the country's splintered politicians and religious groups struggle to form a government.